HE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 


THE  INDIAN  QUESTION 


WILLIAM  BARROWS 


^f 
( 


THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 


OF  THE 


INDIAN   QUESTION 


BY 


WILLIAM    BARROWS    DD 

Author  of 

"Oregon:  the  Struggle  for  Possession:" 
"The  United  States  of  Yesterday  and  of  To-morrow; 

and  others. 


Haec  mea  sunt :  veteres  migrate  coloni 
—  VIRG.  ECL.  ix. 


BOSTON 
D    LOTHROP    COMPANY 

FRANKLIN  AND   HAWLEY  STS. 


IB3 


COPYRIGHT,  1887, 
BY  LUCY  ADAMS  BARROWS. 


ELECTROTYPED 
BY  C.  J.  PETERS  AMD  SON,  BOSTON. 


INTRODUCTION. 


SERIOUS  trifling  with  the  Indian  question 
seems  to  be  coming  to  a  close.  The  "nations" 
of  colonial  times,  and  the  "  high  contracting 
parties  "  whom  the  Republic  met  as  apparent 
equals  during  its  first  ninety  years,  have  come 
down  to  draw  rations  under  the  drum-beat,  or 
to  be  blanketed  and  continental  tramps.  In 
the  last  analysis  of  the  Indian,  in  Congress 
and  on  the  border,  he  is  discovered  to  be  simply 
a  man*  and  more  or  less  like  all  Americans ; 
and  the  recent  and  so  far  final  proposition  is 
to  treat  him  as  an  American.  In  coming  to 
this  we  have  had  a  tedious,  annoying,  nugatory, 
and  mortifying  series  of  theories,  experiments, 
and  makeshifts.  Meanwhile,  there  has  been  an 
apparent  decline  in  their  numbers,  from  the 
highest  official  maximum,  of  "  about  300,000," 
in  1872,  to  259,244  in  1885. 

We  are  now  entering  an  era  of  hope  for_l]ie 
Indian,  under  the  Dawes  Bill ;  and  though  he 
is  at  first  to  have  a  qualified  citizenship  in 
passing  out  of  the  state  of  a  ward,  his  rights 
are  not  to  be  abridged  on  account  of  race  or 
3 

938162 


INTRODUCTION. 


previous  condition.  But  as  a 
leges^and  Jiimmnities  ..dp  not,  practically,  come 
directly  to  one  out  of  the  Constitution  and 
Statutes  of  the  United  States,  but  are  filtered 
to  him  with  more  or  less  freedom  and  purity 
through  the  surrounding  community,  and  as 
the  success  of  this  bill  lies  with  the  border 
whites,  it  has  been  thought  best  to  mark  off, 
historically,  the  leading  and  constant  obstacles 
heretofore  to  Indian  civilization.  Hence  this 
unpretending  treatise.  Only  official  documents 
are  used  to  give  it  force. 

No  law  is  self-operating  ;  somebody  must  use 
it  favorably,  if  the  subject  of  it  has  its  advan 
tages  ;  and  intermeddling  opponents  must  be 
held  in  check  by  hands  friendly  to  the^end  of 
the  law.  Hitherto  statute  provisions  for  the 
Indians,  and  often  wise  and  good,  have  been 
made  powerless  by  a  third  party  intervening 
between  the  government  and  the  Indians  — 
interested,  scheming,  self-seeking  white  men, 
on  the  border  and  in  Washington.  There  was 
once  a  white  border  belt,  poorly  civilized,  and 
with  many  in  it  decivilized,  but  now,  interpen 
etrating  and  commingling,  these  men  have 
quite  destroyed  border-lines. 

Hitherto  the  work  of  the  general  government 
and  of  benevolent  organizations,  in  the  lines  of 
education  and  of  religion,  has  been  thwarted 


INTRODUCTION.  5 

by  white  men  quite  reckless  of  both  civil  and 
moral  restraints.  This  lias  been  a  constant 
force,  both  at  Washington  and  among  the  Ind 
ians,  hindering  their  civilization.  Greed  for 
Indian  lands,  miserable  white  neighborhood 
life,  and  base  passion  have  been  the  constant 
enemy  of  Indian  elevation,  and  have  often 
added  to  his  barbarism  and  profligacy.  More 
over,  the  average  sentiment  west  of  the  Mis 
sissippi  concerning  the  Indian  is  that  he  is  a 
worthless  remnant  of  his  race,  and  incapable 
of  elevation  to  the  average  American  grade,- 
and  it  is  no  harsh  judgment  to  express  that 
the  two-thirds  of  our  domain  thus  indicated 
would  greatly  prefer  a  civil  and  moral  quaran 
tine  between  them'  and  an  Indian  community 
—  the  breadth-  of  a  State  or  Territory.  This 
is  the  gentler  way  with  some  of  saying  that 
the  best  Indian  is  a  dead  Indian.  I  once  saw 
an  unpopular  candidate  carry,  as  with  a  whirl 
wind,  a  doubtful  campaign  in  Colorado,  under 
the  popular  war-cry,  "  The  Ute  must  go  !  " 

Now,  however  high-toned  and  humane  a  bill 
may  be  which  gains  the  assent  of  Congress, 
the  administration  of  it  for  the  wards  of  the 
nation  must  look  for  its  force  and  temper  and 
fidelity  in  the  regions  bordering  on  the  Indian 
reservations  and  ranges.  A  law  enacted  on 
the  Potomac  is  still  subject  to  the  veto  of  local 


6  INTRODUCTION. 

option  on  the  Columbia  or  Missouri  or  Colo 
rado.  Climate  does  not  more  inevitably  and 
irresistibly  modify  the  human  constitution, 
when  one  removes  from  the  land  of  his  na 
tivity,  than  does  the  popular  will  the  working 
efficiency  of  a  United  States  law  perfectly  con 
stitutional,  which  has  started  off  from  the  halls 
of  Congress. 

\  Our  failures  in  the  Indian  policies  for  a 
century  have  not  come  so  much  from  the  lack 
of  fair  legislation.  We  have  had  good  laws 
enough  for  ends  sought.  Nor  have  the  failures 
come  so  much  from  the  quality  of  this  unfortu 
nate  race  as  if  it  were  effete,  worthless,  and 
impossible  of  elevation.  The  ends  sought  by 
the  law  have  not  been  desire3  in  those  sections 
of  the  country  where  the  law  must  be  adminis 
tered,  and  by  the  people  who  must  administer 
it.  This  has  heretofore  been  the  point  of  fatal 
weakness  in  our  government  policy  for  the 
aborigines.  Our-  first  chapter  in  this  book  is 
painfully  abundant  with  evidence  on  this  point. 
The  Dawes  Bill  opens  a  new  era  in  this 
branch  of  our  national  work,  and  it  is  beyond 
doubt  the  best  thing  possible  in  the  line  of  the 
government,  so  far  as  it  goes.  It  embodies  a 
discovery,  which  has  cost  the  expensive  and 
sad  experiments  of  two  centuries,  that  the 
Indian  must  be  made  and  treated  as  an  Amer- 


INTRODUCTION.  7 

lean  citizen.  It,  however,  does  not  contem 
plate  the  removal  or  neutralization  of  the 
force  which  has  made  the  most  of  our  pre 
ceding  laws  and  labors  fruitless.  In  the  di 
agnosis  of  this  great  national  infirmity  or 
malady,  the  main  cause  has  been  assigned  to 
the  red  man,  and  the  medicines  have  been 
given  to  him.  Perhaps  the  bill  goes  as  far  as 
the  government  can  go  in  its  side  of  the  work. 
What  remains  to  make  the  new  era  a  success 
ful  one,  the  people  must  do. 

In  the  regions  more  intimately  affected  by 
the  Indian  question,  there  is  need  of  introduc 
ing  a  civil,  social,  and  moral  constabulary  —  a 
picket-line  of  principles  and  of  sentiments, 
which  will  constrain  a  superior  neighbor  to  be 
a  good  one  to  an  inferior  neighbor.  The  decla 
ration  of  now  almost  seventy  years,  made  by 
the  venerable  and  Christian  Cherokee  in  Geor 
gia,  is  yet  to  be  disproved :  "  No  Cherokee  or 
white  man  with  a  Cherokee  family  can  possi 
bly  live  among  such  white  people  as  will  first 
settle  this  country." 

A  grand  opportunity  is  now  offered  by  this 
bill  to  solve  the  Indian  question  by  saving  the 
Indian  race ;  Congress  gives  the  chance,  and 
the  people  must  do  the  work.  Here  appears 
one  of  the  choicest  features  of  our  govern 
ment,  that  under  the  protecting  approbation 


8  INTRODUCTION. 

of  law  the  people  may  crown  our  civilization 
with  the  associated  philanthropies  and  charities 
and  beatitudes.  These  do  not  come  of  legisla 
tive  enactment,  nor  are  they  established  by 
majority  vote.  The  bill  opens  the  way,  and 
waits  for  the  arrival,  on  the  interior  plains 
and  rivers  and  mountains  of  our  country,  of 
the  sacrifice,  and  romance,  and  heroism,  and 
humane  and  Christian  devotion,  which  we  have 
so  nobly  bestowed  on  the  Ganges  and  Euphrates, 
and  the  wilds  of  Africa,  and  the  islands  of  the 
sea. 

WILLIAM  BAREOWS. 

READING,  MASS.,  November,  1887. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  INDIAN   AND   HIS   WHITE  NEIGHBORS. 

SECTION  I.  — Good  Old  Colony  Times      ....  13 

II.  —  Another  Side  of  the  Indian  Question,  22 

HI.  —  How  Much  Can  the  Government  Do  ?  33 

IV.  —  The  Army  and  the  Indian    ....  44 

V.  —  The  Courts  as  Protectors  of  the  Indian 

Rights 48 

VI.  —  Encouragement  lies  in  Broader  Work,      51 
CHAPTER  H. 

THE  CHEROKEE   EXPERIMENT.      THE   RESERVATION 
SYSTEM   A    FAILURE. 

SECTION  I.  —  Indian   Farmers  among  White   Far 
mers    56 

II.  — Mixed  Society;  The  Civilizing  In 
dian  ;  The  Wild  Indian ;  The 
Hostile  White  Man Gl 

9 


10  CONTENTS. 

SECTION  in.  —  Indian  Civilization  Adjourned    .     .      66 
IV.  — Indian  Civilization  Fatally  Struck  .       68 

V. — Border  White  Men  Superior  to  the 

United  States 72 

VI. —  The     Sad     Journey     of     Sixteen 

Thousand  into  Exile 74 

VII. —  Another  Morning  Overclouded     .       76 

VIII.  — Forebodings,  and  the  Doom  of  the 

Reservation  Theory 81 


CHAPTER  HI. 

INDIAN    FARMING. 

SECTION  I.  —  Some  Very  Singular  Assumptions     .      86 

II. — Early  Indian  Farming  in  New  Eng 
land,  New  York,  Missouri,  New 
Mexico,  Georgia,  Canada,  Michi 
gan,  Iowa,  Florida,  Minnesota, 
Dakota 89 

HI.  —  The  Best  Indian  Farms  the  farthest 

from  White  Neighborhood       .     .     101 

IV.  —  The  Encroachments  of  Immigrants 
and  the  Violation  of  Treaties  as 
related  to  Indian  Farming  .  .  .  104 

V.  —  British  Columbia  and  its  Indians     .     Ill 

VI.  —  Uncertainty  of  Residence  and  Indian 

Farming  Impossible 12A 

VII.  —  Still  Experimenting  -on  Indian  Poli 
cies  and  Invading  Indian  Farms  .     132 


CONTENTS.  11 

CHAPTER  IV. 

DO   THE   AMERICAN   INDIANS   INCREASE   OR  DECREASE? 

SECTION  1.  —  The  Number  of  Indians  in  Early  New 

England 138 

II.  —  The  Number  of  Indians  East  of  the 

Mississippi  in  1820 141 

III.  —  Examples  of   Decrease  beyond  the 

Mississippi 148 

IV.  — Some  Personal  Investigations  .     .     .     154 
V.  —  Increase  or  Decrease  in  California,     157 

VI.  —  The   Government  Census  quite  Im 
perfect,  yet  Shows  much  Decrease,     163 

VII.  —  Some  Unpleasant  Conclusions  .     .     .     166 

VIII. — English    Partnership  in  the    Indian 

Decrease 170 

IX.  —  Has  American   Christianity  done  its 

Best  to  Preserve  the  Indian?        .     171 

CONCLUSION >    .     175 

INDEX  197 


THE 

MAN'S  SIDE  OF  THE  MM  QUESTION, 

CHAPTER   I. 

THE   INDIAN   AND   HIS   WHITE   NEIGHBOES. 

SECTION  1.  —  G-ood  Old  Colony  Times. 

"  Notwithstanding  one  of  the  ostensible 
objects  of  nearly  all  the  royal  charters  and 
patents  issued  for  British  North  America 
was  the  Christianizing  of  the  Indian,  few 
could  be  found  equal  to  the  task  on  arriving 
here.  .  .  .  Adventurers  were  those,  generally, 
who  emigrated  with  a  view  of  bettering  their 
own  condition  instead  of  that  of  others."  l 

For  which  those  early  immigrants  are  not  to 
be  reproached,  since  the  most  of  the  human 
family  emigrate  or  stay  at  home  for  the 
same  reason.  Still,  we  are  interested  to  see 
how  it  fared  in  those  early  times  with  the 
pagan  red  men. 

As  early  as  1670  Richard  Bourne  was  preach 
ing  to  the  Marshpee  Indians  on  Cape  Cod, 
and  even  then  poor  white  human  nature  was 

1  Drake's  "Indians,"  bk.  ii.  112. 
13 


crowding  the  Indian  from  those  acres  of  sand 
and  scrub.  He  therefore  felt  constrained  to 
procure  from  the  Court  at  Plymouth  "  a  rati 
fication  of  their  deeds,  and  entailment  of  their 
lands,  bounded  by  ponds;  etc.,  that  were  im 
movable,  to  these  Indians  and  their  children 
forever."  The  Court  ordained  "  that  no  part 
or  parcel  of  their  lands  could  be  bought  by  or 
sold  to  any  white  person  or  persons  without 
the  consent  of  all  the  said  Indians,  not  even 
with  the  consent  of  the  General  Court.  "  J 

More  than  two  hundred  years  of  painful 
failures,  by  government  and  benevolent  organi 
zations,  in  following  up  exiled  Indians  with 
ploughs  and  spelling-books  and  Bibles,  have 
confirmed  the  "  discernment "  of  the  Indian 
teacher  of  Sandwich.  It  has  been  found,  too, 
that  even  "  ponds "  are  not  immovable  as 
bounds  to  Indian  lands.  It  was  about  this 
time  that  Edward  Randolph,  crown  commis 
sioner  on  Indian  affairs,  wrote  to  William 
Penn  :  "  The  Indians  were  never  civilly  treated 
by  the  Government,  who  made  it  their  busi 
ness  to  encroach  on  the  Indian  lands,  and  by 
degrees  drive  them  out."  2  John  Randolph 
makes  a  similar  remark  a  century  later  :  "  The 

1  "  Plymouth  Colony  Records  "—Mass.  His.  Soc.  Coll., 
vol.  iii.  p.  188. 

2 Freeman's  "Aborigines"  from  1620,  p.  99. 


OF  THE   INDIAN  QUESTION.  15 

least  ray  of  Indian  depredation  will  be  an 
excuse  to  raise  troops  for  those  who  love  to 
have  troops,  etc."  1 

Nor  does  all  the  millennial  advance  attach  to 
the  Penn-Indian  treaties  which  ordinary  his 
tory  is  wont  to  give.  In  the  deed  from  the 
Indians  to  William  Penn  is  this  clause  of 
metes  and  bounds :  "  all  along  by  the  west 
side  of  Delaware  river,  and  so  between  the 
said  creeks,  backwards,  as  far  as  a  man  can 
ride  in  two  days  with  a  horse,  for  and  in  con 
sideration  of  these  following  goods,"  etc.  No 
doubt,  the  shekels,  current  money  with  the  mer 
chant,  were  all  right,  but  the  borders  lack 
somewhat  the  Abrahamic  definiteness  of  the 
Machpelah  lot.  That  Quaker  horse  sired  a 
long-lived  breed,  and  at  times  of  wonderful 
speed.  -  It  seems,  too,  that  the  will  of  William 
Penn  was  executed  in  a  bloody  war.  He 
bequeathed  ten  thousand  acres  to  his  grandson 
William,  "  to  be  laid  out  in  proper  and  bene 
ficial  places  in  this  province  by  his  trustees." 
William  sold  the  unlocated  grant  to  one  Allen, 
a  border-land  speculator,  who  took  up  the 
amount  on  territory  never  conveyed  to  Penn 
by  the  Indians.  This  he  cut  up  into  lots  for 
settlers,  and  disposed  of  them  by  lottery,  as 
Georgia  did  afterward  in  exiling  the  Cherokees, 
1  Letter  to  Charles  Carroll;  April,  1791. 


16 


in  which  no  recognition  was  made  of  Indian 
rights,  nor  did  those  who  drew  the  prizes  allow 
for  them  when  the  fact  of  the  wrong  was  dis 
covered.  In  this  way  much  of  the  land  in 
the  Forks  of  the  Delaware,  the  present  Eastou 
and  vicinity,  was  first  settled  by  white  men, 
through  robbery  first,  and  then  gambling. 
"  The  Indians  were  thus  crowded  from  it. 
They,  for  some  time,  complained,  and  at 
length  began  to  threaten,  but  the  event  was 
war  and  bloodshed."  1 

The  moral  grandeur  arising  from  the  equity 
and  peace  with  which  Penn  administered  his 
Indian  affairs  may  well  keep  a  place  in  history. 
Yet  it  is  not  evident  why  it  should  stand  alone, 
as  if  unequalled.  The  same  thing  was  done 
throughout  New  England  and  New  York,  only 
that  the  immense  royal  grant  to  Penn  ^enabled 
him  to  furnish  a  more  extended  illustration. 
Twenty  years  before  Penn's  noble  act,  John 
Pynchon  paid  to  the  Indians  an  agreeable 
price  for  Northampton!,  the  Hadleys,  and  vicin 
ity,  in  Massachusetts,  "  not  molesting  Indians 
nor  depriving  them  of  their  just  rights  and 
property  without  allowance  to  their  satisfac 
tion."  These  words  are  in  the  first  document 
on  record  in  Northampton. 

It  must  not  surprise  if  we4iere  anticipate  our 
i  Drake,  bk.  v.  30. 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  17 

time  in  the  narrative,  to  read  these  passages  in 
the  report  of  John  Johnson,  Indian  agent  for 
Ohio,  1819,  on  Penn's  Indians  —  about  one  hun 
dred-  and  thirty  years  after  the  will  of  William 
Penn  was  executed.  "  The  Dela\vares  were 
once  very  numerous  and  powerful,  but  many 
disastrous  wars  with  the  white  people  reduced 
them  to  a  mere  handful.  .  .  .  They  are  more 
opposed  to  the  Gospel  and  the  whites  than 
any  other  Indians  with  whom  I  am  acquainted. 
.  .  .  The  United  States  have  engaged  to  re 
move  them  west  of  the  Mississippi.  .  .  .  Their 
peculiar  aversion  to  having  white  people  for 
neighbors  induced  them  to  remove  to  the  west 
ward." 

The  colonial  beginnings  with  the  Indians 
degenerated  early,  and  pious  wishes  and  labors 
were  mostly  august  failures.  In  1675  one 
Indian  was  made  a  Bachelor  of  Arts  at  Cam 
bridge,  yet  the  same  year  the  General  Court 
made  this  entry  on  its  records  :  "  Hereafter  no 
person  shall  harbor  or  entertain  an  Indian." 
No  pains  were  spared  to  teach  them  to  read  and 
write,  and  in  a  short  time  a  larger  proportion 
of  the  Massachusetts  Indians  could  do  so  than 
the  inhabitants  of  Russia  in  our  day. l 

Eliot  taught  the  men  to  dig  the  ground,  and 
the  women  to  spin,  and  the  scholarly  ones  to 
1  Bancroft's  "  His.  U.  S.,v  ii.  (J4, 


18 


raise  the  old  and  still  vigorous  theological 
questions :  — 

"When  Christ  arose,  whence  came  his  soul?" 
"  Shall  I  know  you  in  heaven  ?  "  "  Our  little" 
children  have  not  sinned ;  when  they  die, 
whither  do  they  go  ?  "  "  When  such  die  as 
never  heard  of  Christ,  where  do  they  go  ? " 
"  Why  did  not  God  give  all  men  good  hearts?" 
"Since  God  is  all-powerful,  why  did  not  God 
kill  the  devil  that  made  men  so  bad  ?  "  1 

So  there  came  to  be  the  "  praying  Indians  " 
in  Eastern  and  Southern  Massachusetts  in  1675. 
Prior  to  this,  and  in  1654,  Roger  Williams  had 
thus  written  :  "  It  cannot  be  hid  how  all  Eng 
land  and  other  nations  ring  with  the  glorious 
conversion  of  the  Indians  of  New  England."  2 

All  this  seemed  most  auspicious  for  the  red 
men,  yet  the  bright  vision  makes  only  a  short 
chapter  and  covers  a  narrow  territory.  Ban 
croft  speaks  of  them  as  "  crowded  by  hated 
neighbors,  losing  fields  and  hunting-grounds," 
and  "broken-spirited  from  the  overwhelming 
force  of  the  English."  «Near  to  these,  on  the 
borders  of  Rhode  Island  and  in  it,  were  the 
clans  of  King  Philip.  "  Repeated  sales  of  land 
had  narrowed  their  domains,  and  the  English 
had  artfully  crowded  them  into  the  tongues  of 

1  Bancroft's  "  His.  U.  S./Mi.  95-6. 

2  "  Plymouth  Colony  Records/'  x.  439. 


OF  THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  19 

land.  .  .  .  There  they  could  be  more  easily 
watched;  for  the  frontiers  of  the  narrow  penin 
sulas  were  inconsiderable.  .  .  .  The  English 
villagers  drew  nearer  and  nearer  to  them ; 
their  hunting-grounds  were  put  under  cul 
ture,  and  as  the  ever  urgent  importunity  of 
the  English  was  quieted  but  for  a  season  by 
partial  concessions  from  the  unwary  Indians, 
their  natural  parks  were  turned  into  pastures ; 
their  best  fields  for  planting  corn  were  gradu 
ally  alienated  ;  their  fisheries  were  impaired  by 
more  skilful  methods ;  and  as  wave  after 
wave  succeeded,  they  found  themselves  de 
prived  of  their  broad  acres,  and,  by  their  own 
legal  contracts,  driven,  as  it  were,  into  the 
sea."  i 

Virginia,  as  well  as  New  England  and  the 
new  States  on  both  sides  of  the  Mississippi, 
showed  their  repugnance  to  Indian  neighbors : 
"  In  all  these  treaties,  whether  ratified  or  re 
jected,  the  Virginians  appear  to  have  been 
determined  to  coerce  a  relinquishment  of  the 
Indian  lands,  either  by  fair  means  or  foul,  and 
no  effort  of  negotiation  or  intrigue  was  omitted 
to  accomplish  this  purpose,"  etc. 2  Cotton 
Mather  speaks  of  them  for  those  times  as  "those 
doleful  creatures,  the  veriest  ruins  of  mankind 

1  Bancroft's  "  His.  U.  S.,"  ii.  98-99. 

2  Monette's  "His.  Miss.  Val.,"  vol.  i.  p.  349. 


20  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

to  be  found  on  the  face  of  the  earth,"  whose 
"  way  of  living  was  infinitely  barbarous." 1 
The  first  colonists  of  the  Papal,  English,  and 
Pilgrim  churches  opened  devoutly  with  their 
plans  for  the  welfare  of  the  Indians. 

The  Bull  of  Alexander  VI, ,  under  date  of 
Rome,  May  4,  1493,  conveyed  all  lands  dis 
covered  and  to  be  discovered  by  the  subjects  of 
Ferdinand  and  Isabella  to  them  and  to  their 
royal  successors  forever.  But  they  were  to 
manage  to  send  to  these  newly  discovered 
countries,  whether  continent  or  island,  good 
men,  fearing  God,  learned  and  expert,  to  in 
struct  the  inhabitants  of  these  lands  in  the 
Catholic  faith  and  in  good  morals.  2 

When  Philip  III.  of  Spain  issued  his  royal 
grant  to  Don  Juan  de  Onate,  in  1602,  to  colon 
ize  and  possess  New  Mexico,  beginning  with 
"  200  soldiers,  horses,  cattle,  merchandise,  and 
agricultural  implements,"  he  ordered  that  there 
should  go  with  the  colony  "six  priests,  with  a 
full  complement  of  books,  ornaments,  and 
church  accoutrements."  3 

In  1626-7  Cardinal  Richelieu  organized  his 
company  of  "  The  One  Hundred  Associates," 

1  "Life  of  Eliot." 

2  Deuin  timentes,  docto?,  peritos  et  expertos  ad  instruen- 
dain  incolas  et  habitatores  prafatoj  in  Fide  Catholica  et  in 
bonis  moribus  imbuendain,  etc. 

8  Davis'  '"El  Gringo,"  p.  73, 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  21 

to  take  possession,  for  France  and  the  Church, 
of  all  the  territory  from  Florida  to  the  Arctic 
and  from  Newfoundland  to  the  sources  of  the 
St.  Rawrence.  It  was  a  gigantic  scheme  of 
colonization  to  control  a  wild  continent. 

One  provision  of  the  charter  was  this:  "For 
every  new  settlement,  at  least  three  ecclesiastics 
must  be  provided."  1 

Early  in  the  last  century  a  Scotch  society 
was  organized  to  introduce  religious  and  secu 
lar  teaching  among  the  Indians  in  New  Jersey, 
Pennsylvania,  and  New  York.  The  Rev.  John 
Brainard  was  missionary  in  the  first  named 
State,  and  had  residence  at  Bethel.  He  was 
to  instruct  his  Indian  charge  in  "  spinning 
schools,"  and  teach  them  how  to  prepare  and 
spin  flax.  2 

As  is  well  known,  the  English  Church  follows 
the  English  army  and  colon}*  the  world  over. 
As  when  we  assume  to  do  their  Home  Mission 
ary  work  in  India  we  find  them  there  planting 
their  creed  where  they  planted  their  cannon. 

In  good  old  times  when  Church  and  State 
were  one  in  Massachusetts,  the  Great  and  Gen 
eral  Court  enacted  thus:  "It  is  agreed  that  here 
after  noe  dwelling-bowse  shal  be  builte  above 
halfe  a  myle  from  the  meeting-howse  in  any 

1  Parkman's  "Pioneers  of  France,"  p.  397. 

2  "Mag.  Ain.  His.,"  January,  1885;  pp.  95-7. 


22  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

new     plantacion     without     leauve     from     the 
court."  l 

The  argument  on  the  union  of  Church  and 
State  is  not  all  on  one  side ;  but  when,  as  in  the 
United  States,  we  assume  the  negative,  a  mo 
mentous  responsibility  comes  on  the  church. 
If  the  Church  had  provided  that  meeting-houses 
be  supplied  comfortably  near  to  the  dwell 
ing-houses  "  iii  any  new  plantacion "  on  the 
frontier,  this  ugly  Indian  question  and  some 
other  border  questions  could  never  have  so 
troubled  us.  Somewhat  the  responsibility  of 
those  questions  lies  with  the  Indian  Bureau  at 
Washington,  that  looks  after  red  men ;  and 
somewhat,  and  more  largely,  it  lies  with  Mis 
sionary  Headquarters,  that  should  look  after 
border  white  men,  who  have  "builte  above 
halfe  a  myle  from  the  meeting-howse." 

SECTION  2.  —  Another  Side  of  the  Indian  Ques 
tion. 

Our  government  and  private  benevolence 
are  trying,  with  most  commendable  spe 
cialty,  to  do  a  very  philanthropic  and  Chris 
tian  tiling  for  the  Indians.  Our  "  wards  of 
government "  more  or  less  under  restraining 
and  elevating  influences,  and  exclusive  of 
wild  Indians  and  the  Alaskans,  were  reported 
1  "  Colonial  Records  of  Mass.,"  i.  157,  181. 


OF   THE    INDIAN   QUESTION.  23 

officially  in  1885  to  be  259,244.  These  are 
under  about  seventy  agencies,  and  are  without 
citizenship  and  without  the  possibility  of  owner 
ship  in  real  estate.  Results  are  not  satisfactory 
to  white  or  red  man,  and  there  does  not  yet 
seem  reason  for  varying-  —  except  to  give  place 
to  an  offered  experiment  —  what  Indian  Com 
missioner  Walker  published  in  1874 :  "  The 
true  permanent  scheme  for  the  management 
and  instruction  of  the  whole  body  of  Indians 
within  the  control  of  the  government  is  yet  to 
be  created."  l  Heretofore  we  have  had  the 
policy  of  the  extempore,  a  system  of  shifting 
expedients,  with  annual  Reports  of  failures. 
With  temporary  and  local  successes,  failure 
as  a  whole,  and  decrease  in  the  number 
of  the  "  wards,''  we  have  lately  come  to  a 
very  simple  remedy  for  this  evil  condition 
of  the  wasting  aborigines.  It  is  citizenship, 
aiid_  personal  ownership  in  the  land . 

This  seems  to  be  the  best  possible  plan  for 
the  present.  IJL contemplates  the  absorption  of 
Indian  Rationality  in  American,  and  a  fusion  of 
the  two  races  to  the  full  extent  of  all  civil  relax 
tions  —  the  social  and  domestic  being  left  to 
their  own  choices  and  chances. 

How  far  is  this  theory,  or  scheme,  practicable  ? 
We  call  this  —  the  Dawes  Bill  —  the  best  possi- 
1  "  The  Indian  Question,"  1874;  p.  99. 


24  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

ble  plan  for  the  present.  If,  therefore,  we 
express  any  doubts  of  its  success,  it  will  be  on 
its  feasibility  or  practicability.  Does  not  any 
scheme  which  contemplates  the  civilization  and 
preservation  of  the  Indian  race  require  an  en 
ergized  social  and  moral  tone  in  the  sections  of 
the  Union  where  they  are,  which  national  legis 
lation  and  Congressional  bills  cannot  generate 
and  apply?  In  his  "Sketches  of  Louisiana," 
Major  Stoddard,  our  first  Governor  of  the  Lou 
isiana  Territory,  says  "that  any  considerable 
intercourse  with  the  whites  has  invariably 
tended  to  debase  and  corrupt  them" — the 

(Indians.1  We  have_j£l^jii,scovered  as  acknowl 
edged  only  one  side  or  one  half  of  the  diffi 
culty  in  the  Indian  question.  If  we  go  no 
farther  in  the  study  of  the  case,  and  in  the  ad- 
J  mission  of  the  radical  evil,  but  proceed  to  a 
remedy,  we  are  in  danger  of  entering_on  another 
experiment,  which  will  perhaps  end  in  failure 
as  all  the  others  have  ended. 

The  new  scheme  contemplates  the  total 
fusion,  civilly,  of  the  white  and  red  races,  as 
much  as  the  fusion  of  any  other  nationality, 
German,  French,  or  Swede,  with  the  American, 
and  of  course  leaves  the  social  and  domestic  to 
local  and  personal  option,  as  is  the  case  with 
the  other  races. 

1  Page  410. 


OF   THE    INDIAN    QUESTION.  25 

Some  are  discussing  the  settlement  of  the 
vexed  Indian  question  by  intermarriages  and 
so  the  extinction  of  race  line.  At  the  Mohawk 
Conference  of  the  Board  of  Indian  Commis 
sioners  in  1886,  an  able  paper  was  read  on  Indian 
citizenship.  The  author  says :  —  "  That  the 
cause  of  peace  and  quietness,  the  progress  of 
Christian  settlement  across  the  continent,  and, 
in  short,  the  welfare  of  the  white  races,  are  in 
volved  in  the  permanent  absorption  of  all  the 
tribes  into  the  American  nation,  is  perhaps  a 
generally  recognized  fact.  Some  prejudice,  it 
is  true,  appears  against  the  idea  of  admixture 
or  mingling,  in  the  sense  of  intermarriage  and 
entire  loss  of  race  identity.  But  it  is  impos 
sible  to  prevent  the  mingling  of  blood  on  the 
same  soil,  even  if  desirable.  A  large  part  of 
the  population  enumerated  as  Indian  is  now 
half-breed.  .  .  .  We  are  descended  from  a  com 
mon  father :  God  has  made  us  4  of  one  blood  '  ; 
nor  have  we  any  right,  except  that  derived 
from  power,  to  withhold  from  them  any  privi 
leges  or  immunities  which  we  grant  to  the 
more  civilized  people.  In  all  this  I  do  not 
recommend  the  intermingling  of  the  races;  but 
I  do  not  fear  it  ...  the  nightmare  of  a  confu 
sion  of  races."  ] 

1  "  Eighteenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Board  of  Indian  Com 
missioners,"  1880;  pp.  52-3. 


26 


The  policy  here  suggested  stirs  some  memories 
and  compels  some  anticipations.  The  Hudson 
Bay  Company  are  largely  responsible  for  the 
early  and  prevalent  population  of  the  Domin 
ion,  who,  until  lately,  have  stood  with  face 
averted  from  a  lively  civilization  toward  the 
primitive  and  hybrid  forest  life.  Their  em 
ploye's  were  all  from  the  old  country  and  bach 
elor  men,  and  thence  arose  that  tawny  aristocracy 
of  the  wilderness,  once  so  characteristic  of  the 
North  Country.  Kiel  and  his  followers,  who 
lately,  and  twice,  with  a  few  years  intervening, 
gave  the  Dominion  so  much  anxiety  and  labor 
too,  were  of  the  same  mingled  blood,  in 
the  second,  and  third,  and  fourth  generations. 
As  one  goes  west  and  north-west  and  south 
west  in  our  own  land,  he  has  the  same  facts 
forced  on  him. 

It  is  not  alone  the  copper  color  and  the 
peculiar  eye  and  the  dark  hair  and  the 
unmistakable  physiognomy  in  the  half-breed 
race  which  arrest  his  attention  ;  but  the  indo 
lent  motions,  the  unbusiness-like  habits,  the 
uninviting  home,  and  the  general  im thrift 
thrust  themselves  on  him.  All  these  facts, 
abundant  on  both  sides  of  our  national  boun 
dary,  confirm  and  explain  a  statement  given 
me  in  Wyoming  by  an  Ameiipan  who  had  been 
a  careful  observer  for  forty  years  of  trapper 


OF    THE    INDIAN   QUESTION.  27 

and  trader  and  mining  and  ranching  life  in 
our  wild  and  interior  west :  u  Half-breed  chil 
dren  are  short-lived  and  lack  vigor." 

The  agent  for  the  Crow  Indians  makes  a 
similar  observation:  "This  agency  furnishes 
an  example  of  men  of  culture  becoming  worth 
less  by  association  with  the  Indians,  while 
they  have  contributed  nothing  toward  the  ele 
vation  of  the  red  man.  As  a  rule,  the  full- 
blooded  Indian  stands  a  much  better  chance  to 
become  a  man  than  the  half-breed.  The  pres 
ence  of  these  men  causes  more  trouble  in  the 
management  of  the  Indians  than  all  other 
causes  combined."  l  To  make  the  Dawes^  Bill 
effective  for  its  end,  there  may  be  needed  a 
larger  corps  of  what  Robert  South  calls  "God's 
police." 

"The"  Report  for  1886  of  the  L'Anse  and 
Vieux  Desert  Reservation  gives  the  number  of 
the  Indian  population  as  694.  Of  that  320  are 
full-bloods  and  374  are  mixed,  more  than  one 
half.  The  location  of  these  Indians  will  be 
noted  as  in  the  region  of  the  early  trapper  and 
fur-trader  towns  of  Detroit  and  Mackinaw. 
Not  only  the  number  of  half-breeds  here  and 
elsewhere  must  be  considered,  but  the  demoral 
ized  condition  of  society  which  has  produced 
them. 

1  "  Report  of  Commissioners  011  Indian  Affairs,"  1874;  p.  262. 


28  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

As  to  intermarriage  as  a  remedy  for  the 
evils  in  question,  the  plan  is  not  new.  It  was 
formerly  proposed  by  the  Secretaiy  of  War, 
when  that  department  had  in  charge  the  Ind 
ian  field. 

General  William  C.  Crawford  had  been  a 
member  of  Congress,  ambassador  to  France, 
and  Secretary  of  War,  and  aspired  to  the  pres 
idency,  but  lost  the  election  as  against  Mr. 
Monroe.  As  Secretary  of  War  in  1815,  he 
made  a  sensational  Report  on  the  Indian  af 
fairs,  with  these  recommendations  :  — 

44  If  the  system  already  devised  has  not  pro 
duced  all  the  effects  which  were  expected 
from  it,  new  experiments  ought  to  be  made. 
Where  every  effort  to  introduce  among  them, 
the  Indian  savages,  ideas  of  exclusive  property 
in  things  real  as  well  as  personal  shall  fail,  let 
intermarriage  between  them  and  the  whites  be 
encouraged  by  the  government.  This  cannot 
fail  to  preserve  the  race,  with  the  modifications 
necessary  to  the  enjoyment  of  civil  liberty  and 
social  happiness.  It  is  believed  that  the  prin 
ciples  of  humanity,  in  this  instance,  are  in  har 
monious  concert  with  the  true  interests  of  the 
nation.  It  will  redound  more  to  the  national 
honor  to  incorporate  by  a  humane  and  benevo 
lent  policy  the  natives  of  oftr  forests  into  the 
great  American  family  of  freemen,  than  to 


OF   THE   INDIAN  QUESTION.  29 

receive  with  open  arms  the  fugitives  of  the 
old  world,  whether  their  flight  has  been  the 
effect  of  their  crimes  or  of  their  virtues." 1  The 
most  marked  effect  of  this  Report  was  the  polit 
ical  execution  of  its  author. 

Hitherto  and  nationally  the  white  side  of 
the  Indian  question  has  been  kept  back.  The 
remark  of  Secretary  Stanton,  in  1862,  to 
Bishop  Whipple,  of  Minnesota,  should  head 
this  national  question,  measure  the  under 
lying  evils,  and  shape  the  remedy. 

Admit  to  their  fullest  extent  the  pagan, 
heathen,  and  savage  qualities  of  many  of  the 
Indians,  we  must,  nevertheless,  give  the  place 
of  prominence  to  the  words  of  the  secretary 
to  the  bishop :  "  If  you  come  to  Washington 
to  tell  us  that  our  Indian  system  is  a  sink  of 
iniquity  and  a  disgrace  to  the  nation,  we  all 
know  it."  Color  the  Indian  to  the  darkest  and 
hardest  character  allowable,  by  the  facts,  as  a 
human  being  for  civilization  and  Christianity 
to  take  in  hand,  still  it  must  be  borne  in  mind 
that  the  whites  have  been  the  overwhelming 
party  in  all  Indian  transactions,  and  had  every 
thing  their  own  way.  We  have  dictated  and 
broken  the  most  of  the  treaties,  we  have  neces 
sitated,  initiated,  and  executed  the  most  of  the 
removals,  and  so  far  as  the  Indians  have  come 
1  Senate  Papers,  14th  Congress,  1st  Session. 


30  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

under  American  laws,  we  have  enacted,  inter 
preted,  and  executed  those  laws.  Generally, 
wherein  they  have  suffered  from  breach  of 
treaty,  removal,  or  from  failure  of  law  to 
protect  their  legal  rights,  it  has  been  through 
our  maladministration,  or  negligence,  or  sin 
ister  design. 

Judge  Belford,  of  Colorado,  was  credited,  not- 
long  since,  with  the  statement  that  since  our 
independence  the  United  States  has  made 
929  treaties  with  307  Indian  tribes  and  bands. 
Commissioner  Walker,  discriminating  between 
tribes  and  bands,  speaks  of  "nearly  400  treaties 
confirmed  by  the  Senate,  as  are  treaties  with 
foreign  powers."  1  As  all  know,  it  was  at  the 
will  of  the  government  whether  these  treaties 
should  be  observed  or  broken.  The  bordering 
whites  and  designing  men  back  of  them  had 
their  own  way. 

It  will  be  observed  that  the  most  of  this  evil 
to  the  red  man,  and  dishonor  to  the  white  man, 
takes  place  on  the  frontier,  and  grows  out  of 
an  incompatibility  of  neighborhood  between 
the  two  races,  on  their  present  level,  or  grade 
of  civilization.  The  present  white  civilization 
of  the  border  does  not  seem  to  be  able  to 
tolerate  the  inferior  Indian  neighborhood,  and 
recognize  its  natural  rights  and  the  claims 
1  "The  Indian  Question,''  by  Francis  A.  Walker,  1874. 


OF   THE  INDIAN   QUESTION.  31 

guaranteed  by  government.  The  question  has 
often  been  put  beyond  the  Missouri,  whether 
the  civilization  of  the  East  has,  or  does,  or 
would,  in  case  of  occasion,  tolerate  Indian 
neighborhood  with  an  elevating  sympathy.  In 
his  "  Across  the  Continent,"  page  8,  Mr.  Samuel 
Bowles  makes  this  record  :  "  The  almost  uni 
versal  testimony  of  the  border  men  is  that 
there  can  be  no  terms  made  with  the  Indians. 
The  only  wise  policy,  they  aver,  is  extermina 
tion.  This  is  dreadful,  if  true,  but  I  cannot 
believe  it."  To  speak  in  round  terms,  we  have 
a  curving  frontier  white  belt  1600  miles  long, 
and  600  deep,  and  it  is  constantly  moving  on 
and  over  Indian  lands  and  reservations  and 
rights,  inexorable  and  irresistable.  To  stop  or 
turn  it  would  be  like  meddling  with  the  stealthy 
shadows  of  an  eclipse.  On  this  belt  are 
concentrated  the  capital  of  the  old  East, 
and  emigrants  from  all  the  old  States.  In 
terest  in  that  capital,  and  sympathy  for  those 
emigrants,  are  diffused  through  the  Atlantic 
half  of  the  country.  Under  the  teachings 
and  trailing  influences  of  two  hundred  and 
fifty  years  the  western  half  of  the  country 
has  riot  civil  and  moral  sympathy  high  enough, 
any  more  than  the  old  East  had,  to  endure 
the  Indian  as  a  neighbor,  while  they  settle 
near  enough  to  cultivate  covetousness  for 


32  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

his  guaranteed  lands.  "  So  far  have  these 
forms  of  usurpation  been  carried  at  times 
in  Kansas,  that  an  Indian  Reservation  there 
might  be  defined  as  that  portion  of  the 
soil  of  the  State  on  which  the  Indians  have 
no  rights  whatsoever."  : 

"It  requires  no  deep  knowledge  of  human 
nature,  and  no  very  extensive  knowledge  of 
congressional  legislation,  to  assume  that  many 
and  powerful  interests  will  oppose  themselves 
to  a  readjustment  of  the  Indian  tribes  between 
the  Missouri  and  the  Pacific,  under  the  policy 
of  seclusion  and  non-intercourse.  Railroad 
enterprises  and  land  enterprises  of  every 
name  will  find  any  scheme  that  shall  be 
seriously  proposed  to  be  quite  the  most  ob 
jectionable  of  all  that  could  be  offered.  Every 
State,  and  every  territory  that  aspires  to  be 
come  a  State,  will  strive  to  keep  the  Indians 
as  far  as  possible  from  its  own  borders  ;  while 
powerful  combinations  of  speculators  will 
make  their  fight  for  the  last  acre  of  Indian 
lands."2 

This  was  strong  language  for  a  government 
official  to  use  twelve  years  ago  ;  and  yet  the 

facts  have  more  than  fulfilled  the  prediction, 

« 

1  "The  Indian  Question,"  by  Brands  A.  Walker;  pp. 
77-78;  1874. 

2  Do.,  pp.  119-120. 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  33 

and  results  are  far  from  honorable  to  the 
tone  of  our  supposed  civilization.  And  the 
intensity  of  language  has  hardly  measured 
the  greed,  the  insatiable  hunger  for  Indian 
land.  In  explaining  and  defending  his  Indian 
Severalty  Bill,  Mr.  Dawes  has  thus  expressed 
himself:  "We  are  blind,  we  are  deaf,  we  are 
insane,  if  we  do  not  take  cognizance  of  the  fact 
that  there  are  forces  in  this  land  driving  on 
this  people  with  a  determination  to  possess 
every  acre  of  their  land;  and  they  will  lose  it, 
unless  we  work  on,  and  declare  that  the  original 
owner  of  the  land  shall,  before  every  acre  disap 
pears  from  under  him  forever,  have  160  acres 
of  it,  when  he  shall  be  fitted  to  become  a 
citizen  of  the  United  States,  and  prepared 
to  bear  the  burdens  as  well  as  share  the  rights 
of  our  governnent."  l 

SECTION  3. — ffotv  much  can  the  Government  do  ? 

The  Ordinance  of  the  North-west  Territory 
made  it  the  duty  of  the  legislature  "  to  ob 
serve  the  utmost  good  faith  towards  the  In 
dians  ;  to  protect  their  property,  rights,  and 
liberty  ;  and  to  pass  laws,  founded  in  justice 

1  Speech  of  Senator  Dawes,  Board  of  Indian  Commis 
sioners,  Mohawk  Lake  Conference,  Oct.  13,  1886;  "Eigh 
teenth  Annual  Report,"  p.  77. 


34  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

and  humanity,  for  preventing  wrongs  being 
done  to  them."  In  accordance  with  this  Ordi 
nance,  "  The  bill  to  prevent  the  introduction 
of  ardent  spirits  into  the  Indian  towns  was 
passed,  at  the  instance  of  the  missionaries  of 
the  Church  of  the  United  Brethren,  who  had 
made  establishments,  under  authority  cf  Con 
gress,  at  Shcenbrun,  Gnadenhiitten,  and  Salem, 
on  the  Tuscarawas  branch  of  the  Muskingum 
River,  then  in  the  County  of  Washington. 
The  Indians  in  those  settlements  had  been 
Christianized,  and  had  made  considerable 
progress  in  agriculture  and  the  high  arts. 
But  when  the  white  people  settled  in  their 
neighborhood,  and  began  to  associate  and 
trade  with  them,  whiskey  was  introduced  into 
their  towns,  as  a  profitable  article  of  traffic. 
The  effect  it  was  producing  on  their  industry 
and  moral  habits  became  alarming,  and  in 
duced  the  missionaries  to  apply  to  the  General 
Assembly  for  relief,  who  granted  it  promptly, 
to  the  extent  of  the  means  in  their  power.  .  . 
For  a  short  time  the  law  produced  a  good 
effect,  but  as  the  white  population  increased 
and  approached  nearer  to  the  villages,  it  was 
found  impossible  any  longer  to  carry  it  into 
execution.  The  result  was  that  the  Indians 
became  habitually  intemperate,  idle,  and  faith 
less,  the  missionaries  lost  all  their  influence 


OF  THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  35 

over   them,    and   eventually    were    constrained 
to  abandon  the  settlements   in  despair.  1 

In  his  message  to  the  Territorial  Assembly 
of  Ohio,  in  1800,  Governor  St.  Clair  observed 
that  "  irrespective  of  the  principles  of  religion 
and  justice,  it  was  the  interest  and  should  be 
the  policy  of  the  United  States  to  be  at  peace 
with  them  ;  but  that  could  not  continue  to 
be  the  case  if  the  treaties  existing  between 
them  and  the  government  were  broken  with 
impunity  by  the  inhabitants  of  the  Territory. 
He  referred  to  the  well  known  fact  that  while 
the  white  men  loudly  complained  of  every  in 
jury  committed  by  the  Indians,  however  tri 
fling,  and  demanded  immediate  reparation,  they 
were  daily  perpetrating  against  them  injuries 
and  wrongs  of  the  most  provoking  and  atro 
cious  nature,  for  which  the  perpetrators  had 
not  been  brought  to  justice.  It  was  univer 
sally  known  that  many  of  those  unfortunate 
people  had  been  plundered  arid  abused  with 
impunity.  Among  other  things,  the  governor 
stated  that  it  would  be  criminal  in  him  to 
conceal  the  fact  that  the  number  of  those 
unfortunate  people  who  had  been  murdered 
since  the  peace  of  Greenville,  was  sufficient 
to  produce  serious  alarm  for  the  consequences. 

1  "  Notes  on  the  Early  Settlement  of  the  North-west 
Territory."  By  Jacob  Burnet,  pp.  211-12,  384. 


36  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

He  added  further  that  a  late  attempt  to 
bring  to  punishment  a  white  man,  who  had 
killed  two  adults  of  the  Six  Nations,  and 
wounded  two  of  their  children,  in  Trumbull 
County,  proved  abortive.  Though  the  perpe 
tration  of  the  homicide  was  clearly  proved, 
and  it  appeared  manifestly  to  have  been  com 
mitted  with  deliberate  malice,  the  prisoner 
was  acquitted."  1 

So  far,  and  in  these  circumstances,  the 
government  failed  to  protect  the  red  man 
against  the  white  man.  Government  in  the 
United  States  is  the  voice  of  the  people,  and 
the  people  have  decided  against  the  Indian 
when  questions  of  equity  were  involved.  We 
probably  never  had  an  army  large  enough,  in 
times  of  peace,  to  picket  and  protect  them. 

"From  1821  to  1828  inclusive,  the  writer 
of  these  sketches  passed  through  the  latter 
settlement  (the  Wyandots  at  Upper  San- 
dusky)  almost  every  year,  and  occasionally 
twice  a  }rear,  which  gave  him  an  opportunity 
to  know  that  they  Avere  devoting  themselves 
principally,  and  almost  exclusively,  to  agri 
culture  and  the  arts,  and  were  making  rapid 
advances  in  civilization,  when  the  policy  of 
the  government  compelled  them  to  abandon 

1  Burnet's  "  Notes  on  the  North-west  Territory,"  pp. 
323-4. 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  37 

their  farms,  dispose  of  their  stock  and  other 
property  at  a  great  sacrifice,  and  migrate  to 
the  Far  West."1 

Judge  Burnet  follows  this  fact  with  some 
eminently  sensible  remarks,  and  they  are  as 
pertinent  to-day  as  they  were  in  1825:  "It  is 
not  just  to  consider  the  natives  of  this  country 
as  a  distinct  and  inferior  race  because  they 
do  not  generally  imitate  us,  when  we  not 
only  remove  every  consideration  that  could 
induce  them  to  do  so,  but,  in  fact,  render  it 
impossible.  What  motive  of  ambition  was 
there  to  stimulate  them  to  effort,  when  they 
were  made  to  feel  that  they  held  their  coun 
try  as  tenants  at  will,  liable  to  be  driven  off 
at  the  pleasure  of  their  oppressors?  As  soon 
as  they  were  brought  to  a  situation  in  which 
necessity  prompted  them  to  industiy,  and  in 
duced  them  to  begin  to  adopt  our  manners 
and  habits  of  life,  the  covetous  eye  of  the 
white  man  was  fixed  on  their  incipient  im 
provements,  and  they  received  the  chilling 
notice  that  they  must  look  elseAvhere  for  per 
manent  homes."  2 

Unusual  space  has  been  given  to  these  ex 
tracts  from  the  Notes  of  Judge  Burnet,  for 
two  reasons.  His  official  duties  called  him 
to  a  very  wide  range  of  country  and  of  ob- 

1  Burnet' s  "Notes,"  pp.  386-7.          2  Burnet,  pp.  388-9. 


38  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

servation.  For  the  North-west  Territory,  in 
which  he  held  court,  embraced  the  present 
areas  of  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  Michigan,  and 
Wisconsin  ,  and  when  his  circuit  took  him 
from  Marietta  to  Detroit,  he  had  opportunity 
to  see  much  of  Indian  life,  and  of  border 
white  life.  Moreover,  in  this  vast  territory 
the  government  fairly  illustrated  its  principles 
and  policies  regarding  the  natives.  The  qual 
ity  and  rank  of  the  writer  would  warrant  us 
also  in  regarding  his  observations  and  opin 
ions  as  given  with  a  judicious  fairness,  ex 
tending,  as  they  did,  over  about  a  third  of 
a  century. 

In  one  of  his  messages  to  the  23d  Congress, 
President  Jackson  has  an  idea  of  the  remedy 
for  the  decrease  of  the  Indians,  while  the  rem 
edy  which  he  offers  is  impossible  of  application. 
He  properly  apprehends  the  fact  that  contact 
with  the  whites  is  the  destruction  of  the  Indi 
ans,  and  proposes  complete  isolation,  which  of 
course  is  impossible.  "  The  experience  of  every 
year  adds  to  the  conviction  that  emigration  [of 
the  Indians],  and  that  alone,  can  preserve  from 
destruction  the  remnant  of  the  tribes  yet  living 
among  us."  Now,  in  the  opening  of  this  new 
Indian  era,  and  the  most  hopeful  one  we  have 
ever  had,  we  are  confronted  witli  the  problem  of 
saving  the  Indians,  not  only  without  emigration, 


OF   THE   INDIAN    QUESTION.  39 

but  rather  by  a  more  total  commingling  with 
the  whites,  in  real  estate  ownership  side  by 
side,  and  in  mixed  industries  of  a  common  and 
equal  American  citizenship. 

Under  our  present  inquiry,  How  much  the 
Government  can  do  for  the  preservation  of  the 
Indian  race,  let  reference  be  had  to  the  fourtji 
chapter  in  this  discussion,  and  to  the  fourth 
section,  under  the  title,  Some  Personal  Inves 
tigations. 

It  is  probably  safe  to  say  that  the  party  ad 
ministration,  which  should  employ,  to  the  con 
stitutional  extent,  the  civil  and  military  power 
to  enforce  our  Indian  treaties,  would  not  survive 
to  the  succeeding  presidential  election.  It  is  a 
delusion  to  think  of  a  power  in  this  nation 
separate  from  the  people,  and  administering 
what  is  called  a  government,  which  is  not  the 
will  of  the  people.  We  have  no  such  thing  in 
the  United  States,  and  every  law  unpopular 
with  the  people  is  at  the  mercy  of  "  local  op 
tion  "  in  the  court  room,  if  not  at  the  polls. 

The  administration  of  Indian  affairs  has  doubt 
less  been  in  general  accord  with  the  wishes  of 
the  people  of  the  Great  West,  and  they  are  more 
than  one  half  the  population,  and  eight  ninths 
of  the  territory,  dividing  the  whole  country 
jnto  East  and  West ;  and  there  is  a  delusion  in 
making  three  parties  —  the  people,  the  govern- 


40 


ment,  and  the  Indians  —  and  blaming  the 
government  as  a  third  party,  for  being  faithless 
to  either  or  both  the  other  parties.  The  ground 
difficulty,  in  the  Indian  question,  has  probably 
never  been  more  comprehensively  and  truthfully 
stated  than  by  the  aged  Cherokee,  above  quoted, 
the  father  of  Catherine  Brown,  of  missionary 
fame.  It  was  in  1818,  and  in  Georgia.  The 
Cherokees  were  then  starting  off  in  farming,  and 
government  promised  them  ample  supplies,  and 
encouragement,  and  protection.  But  this  bor 
der  civilization  crowded  them,  and  government 
offered  them  protection  in  Georgia,  or  a  new 
home  in  the  Indian  Territory.  With  a  rare 
foresight  of  the  issues,  and  against  advice  of 
missionaries,  this  old  and  gray-haired  Cherokee 
concluded  to  go  over  the  Mississippi  to  the 
New  Indian  Territory,  and  gave  as  the  reason  : 
"No  Cherokee,  or  white  man  with  a  Chero 
kee  family,  can  possibly  live  among  such  white 
people  as  will  first  settle  our  country."  l 

That  agreed  perfectly  with  Stanton's  reinark 
to  Bishop  Whipple.  And  indeed  it  is  but  the 
repetition  of  what  John  Smith  said  of  the  Vir 
ginia  colony  :  "  Much  they  blamed  me  for  not 
converting  the  savages,  when  those  they  sent 
us  were  little  better,  if  not  worse/'  In  speak 
ing  of  the  destructive  influence  of  frontier  and 
1  Tracy's  "His.  of  the  Am.  Board,"  p.  75. 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  41 

trading  men  on  the  Indians,  the  "  Edinburgh 
Review  "  has  this  statement:  — 

"  It  has  been  tried  by  the  French  ;  it  has  been 
tried  by  the  English  ;  and  it  has  been  tried  by 
the  Americans  ;  and  in  every  case  the  natives 
have  been  swept  away  by  war,  disease,  and 
famine,  and  the  whites  have  exhibited  a  fright 
ful  mixture  of  all  the  vices  of  civilized  and 
savage  life."  l 

The  ancient  East,  where  the  frontier  faded 
out  long  ago,  can  but  poorly  fancy  the  real  bor 
der  of  to-day,  where  this  Indian  question  is  so 
intensely  and  sometimes  terribly  practical. 
Hence  the  birth,  on  the  Atlantic  slope,  of  so 
many  visionary  and  sentimental  and  aesthetic 
theories  concerning  it.  In  his  admirable  His 
tory  of  the  Mississippi  Valley,  Monette  outlines 
the  mixed  border  society  of  the  two  races,  with 
a  painful  fidelity.  "  The  confines  between  the 
white  man  and  the  savage  present  human  na 
ture  in  its  most  revolting  aspect.  The  white 
man  insensibly,  and  by  necessity,  adopts  the 
ferocity  and  the  cruelty  of  his  savage  competi 
tor  for  the  forests,  and  .each  is  alternately 
excited  with  a  spirit  of  the  most  vindictive 
revenge/' 2 

A  case  comparatively  recent  is  here  in  point. 

1  "Ed.  Review,"  vol.  Ixxxii.  no.  165,  1845,  p.  243. 

2  Vol.  ii.  pp.  38,  39. 


42 


In  1871-2,  the  Osages,  living  in  Kansas,  ex 
changed  their  lands  with  government  for  a 
reservation  in  the  Indian  Territory.  When 
they  started  for  their  new  home,  uncivilized 
whites,  some  500  of  them,  rushed  ahead  and 
took  the  reservation,  and  compelled  the  Osages 
to  camp  outside.  The  War  Department  ordered 
them  off,  and  political  pressure  prevented  the 
execution  of  the  order  till  the  year  following, 
when  the  troops  found  1500  whites  in  posses 
sion  of  the  Osage  lands,  and  expelled  them. 

The  decivilizing  influences  of  frontier  life, 
and  specially  in  mining  and  ranching  districts, 
and  among  those  who  are  emigrant  families  in 
the  third  generation  from  old  colony  days,  are 
beyond  the  comprehension  of  the  staid,  theo 
retic,  and  untravelled  New  Englander.  Prai 
ries,  valleys,  and  mountain  ranges,  that  have 
scant  copies  of  the  spelling-book,  and  that 
seldom  or  never  have  echoed  the  sound  of 
church  bells,  are  not  apt  to  be  intelligent  and 
clear-toned  on  equity,  and  treaties,  and  the 
general  rights  of  person  and  property  and  con 
science,  regardless  of  race  or  color.  A  depot 
is  no  perfect  substitute  for  a  school-room,  or  a 
locomotive  bell  for  a  church  bell,  in  carrying 
civilization  into  a  wild  country  and  among  men, 
unfortunate  for  two  or  three-generations,  in  the 
means  of  literary,  and  civil  and  social  eleva 
tion. 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  43 

Of  course  the  government,  as  well  as  benev 
olent  societies,  has  been  pressed  to  make  the 
best  possible  show  of  their  success  in  Indian 
work.  When  on  a  visit  to  the  Indian  Territory, 
in  1880,  we  attended  their  national  fair  at 
Muskogee.  It  was,  as  one  at  the  North,  for  a 
show  of  the  products  of  civilization  in  farming, 
stock-raising,  mechanics,  and  domestic  indus 
tries.  Excepting  a  very  fine  show  by  the  ladies 
in  the  latter,  the  whole  was  a  surprise  and  dis 
appointment.  Official  reports  of  civil  and  be 
nevolent  agents  had  raised  our  expectations 
exceedingly  beyond  the  reality. 

A  similar  delusion  was  dispelled,  with  refer 
ence  to  the  high  educational  tone  among  the 
Cherokees.  Their  schools  were  fair,  but  it  had 
been  impressed  on  us  for  years,  by  reports  and 
speeches,  that  this  Indian  tribe  excelled  the 
most,  if  not  all  the  States,  in  the  rate  of  tax 
per  scholar  which  it  furnished  for  the  common 
school.  We  found  the  case  to  be  that,  in  the 
sale  of  their  Georgia  lands  by  the  United  States, 
our  government  wisely  conditioned  that  830,000 
of  the  income  should  be  devoted  annually  to 
schools.  They  therefore  were  not  voting  a 
school  tax  for  this  amount,  and  its  excess  over 
that  in  many  white  States,  was  no  evidence  of 
an  advanced  civilization,  or  educational  ambi 
tion. 


44  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

Full  admission  is  made  of  all  we  have  gained, 
within  a  few  years,  in  locating  Indians  on 
reservations,  renev/ing  among  them  their  an 
cient  rudimental  agriculture,  introducing  some 
of  the  elements  of  education,  securing  some 
Christian  fruit,  and  imparting  some  of  the 
notions  and  practices  of  a  crude  civilization 
into  the  Indian  family  and  house.  Of  course 
our  greatest  success,  as  our  longest  and  most 
expensive  endeavor,  has  been  among  the  Chero- 
kees.  But  here,  as  will  be  shown  in  pages 
following,  we  found  them  unwilling  to  add 
tilth,  and  buildings,  and  fences,  and  wells,  and 
highways  to  land  which  they  did  not  individu 
ally  own,  and  which  they  expected  to  leave 
under  constraint  and  pressure.  They  had  the 
traditions,  and  some  of  the  older  ones  had  the 
memories,  of  their  fatherland,  east  of  the  great 
river. 

SECTION.  4.  —  The  Army  and   the  Indian. 

"  Some  Mormons  who  were  crossing  the 
plains  to  Utah  had  a  lame  ox,  which  they 
turned  loose  to  die,  and  a  camp  of  Indians 
found  and  killed  it,  and  made  a  feast.  The 
Mormons  saw  this  in  the  distance,  and,  think 
ing  they  could  secure  payment,  stopped  at 
Fort  Laramie,  and  told  the* officer  in  command 
the  Indians  had  stolen  their  ox.  The  officer, 


OF   THE  INDIAN   QUESTION.  45 

who  was  half  drunk,  took  some  soldiers,  went 
to  the  Indian  villiage,  and  demanded  the  ox. 
The  Indians  said :  4  We  thought  the  white  man 
had  turned  him  loose  to  die.  We  have  eaten 
the  ox  ;  if  the  white  man  want  pay  for  him, 
3'ou  shall  have  it  out  of  our  next  annuity.' 
4  No,'  said  the  drunken  officer,  '  I  want  the 
ox,  and,  if  you  do  not  return  him,  1  will 
fire  upon  you.'  He  did  fire  on  them,  and 
killed  a  chief.  The  Indians  rallied,  and 
exterminated  the  command.  That  war  cost 
one  million  dollars."  l  For  a  generation  the 
Sioux,  who  were  thus  outraged,  had  been  the 
devoted  friends  of  our  government.  How 
much  better  the  kind  and  wise  counsel  of 
Jefferson :  "  The  most  economical  as  well  as 
most  humane  conduct  towards  them  is  to  bribe 
them  into  peace,  and  retain  them  in  peace  by 
eternal  bribes."  2 

An  army  among  the  uncivilized  is  not  a 
civilizing  but  a  conquering,  humiliating  force ; 
and  ordinarily  it  does  not  generate  the  soften 
ing,  genial,  and  elevating  qualities,  which  we 
group  under  the  term  civilization.  While  it 
has  its  uses,  as  organized  physical  force,  to 
hold  savagery  in  check,  and  to  throw  pro- 

1  "  Guide  to  the  Northern  Pacific  Railroad."  by  Henry  I. 
Winser,  1883,  p.  92. 

2  Letter  to  Charles  Carroll,  April,  1791. 


46 


tection  over  rights  which  have  migrated  be 
yond  the  borders  of  civil  jurisdiction,  it  is 
not  aggressive  in  the  introduction  of  the 
civil  and  social  and  industrial  and  moral 
qualities  which  constitute  the  foundations  of 
society.  While  our  frontier  army  has  found 
the  Indians  simply  gregarious,  it  has  succeeded 
mainly,  in  gathering  them  in  corrals  to  be 
fed. 

Nor  are  the  United  States  alone  in  this 
policy  of  so  using  a  national  army  among  in 
ferior  and  barbarous  peoples.  It  is  poor  credit 
to  the  civilized  nations  that  they  do  not 
elevate  the  people  whom  they  subdue,  and 
preserve  their  separateness  and  automony. 
Subjection  is  followed  by  denationalization, 
and  absorption  ends  in  extinction.  Of  the  de 
pendencies  which  Great  Britain  has  had,  — 
forty  and  more  even  yet,  —  development  into 
separateness  has  been  allowed  only  in  the  case 
of  the  thirteen  American  colonies,  and  then 
from  inability  to  do  otherwise.  And  neither 
France  nor  Spain,  nor,  indeed,  any  European 
government,  has  ever  become  the  willing 
mother  of  a  nation.  Their  complex  prob 
lem  in  Asia  and  Africa  is,  apparently,  how 
not  to  do  it. 

Nor  must  this  be  taken-as  reproach  to  the 
military.  The  army  is  organized,  educated, 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  47 

and  applied  physical  force,  and  is  not  to  be 
reproached  for  not  accomplishing  what  it  is 
neither  adapted  nor  designed  to  produce. 
Like  produces  like.  General  Ouster's  reflec 
tions,  therefore,  are  apt  and  sensible  from  the 
base  line  of  an  army,  and  from  the  tone  and 
scope  of  the  education  of  a  gallant  soldier, 
as  he  was  :  — 

"  My  firm  conviction,  based  upon  an  inti- 
•  mate  and  thorough  analysis  of  the  habits  of 
character,  and  native  instinct  of  the  Indian, 
and  strengthened  and  supported  by  the  almost 
unanimous  opinion  of  all  persons  who  have 
made  the  Indian  problem  a  study,  and  have 
studied  it,  not  from  a  distance,  but  in  immedi 
ate  contact  with  all  the  facts  bearing  there 
upon,  is,  that  the  Indian  cannot  be  elevated 
to  that  great  level  where  he  can  be  induced  to 
adopt  any  policy  or  mode  of  life,  varying  from 
those  to  which  he  has  ever  been  accustomed, 
by  any  method  of  teaching,  argument,  reason 
ing,  or  coaxing,  which  is  not  preceded  and 
followed  closely  in  reserve  by  a  superior  physi 
cal  force.  In  other  words  the  Indian  is  capable 
of  recognizing  no  controlling  influence  but  that 
of  stern  arbitrary  power."  l 

On    this   theory    the    army    must    be    ruled 
out   as   a    constructing   and    elevating    power 
1  "Life  on  the  Plains." 


48  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

to  bring  the  Indian  up  to  a  fair  citizenship 
and  manhood.  "  Stern  arbitrary  power  "  can 
not  accomplish  that.  One  of  the  difficulties,  and 
a  strong  one,  in  the  way  of  securing  the  ends  of 
the  Dawes  bill,  is  that  this  sentiment,  naturally 
common  to  the  frontier  where  the  civil  and  moral 
code  have  not  become  prominent  and  patronized 
by  the  army,  as  in  their  line  of  work,  holds  sway, 
and  puts  the  Indian  beyond  the  range  of  the 
ordinary  civilizing  forces.  The  army  has  its 
place  and  work  on  the  border,  but  the  tactics 
of  West  Point  are  -not  adequate  to  the  emer 
gencies  of  the  Indian  Problem. 

SECTION  5.  —  The   Courts   as  Protectors  of  the 

Indian  Rights. 

Much  reliance  is  placed  on  the  United  States 
laws  and  courts  to  secure  justice  to  the  wards 
of  the  government.  A  careful,  hesitating  con 
fidence  here  will  be  the  wiser  course.  Law  is 
not  a  leader  of  public  sentiment  or  a  reformer, 
but  only  the  legislative  utterance  of  public 
opinion,  and  of  a  reform  gained.  Law  is  the 
will  of  the  people  in  print.  It  is  the  ratchet 
on  the  wheel,  and  will  hold  only,  and  not  turn, 
or  pull,  or  lift.  If  the  States  and  Territories, 
where  the  Indians  are,  do  not  wish  them  to 
remain  there,  Congress  is  impotent,  and  the 
courts  are  powerless. 


OF   THE    INDIAN   QUESTION.  49 

In  some  cases  in  the  East,  where  prejudice 
or  passion  runs  strong,  the  trial  is  moved  to 
some  distant  section,  where  the  jury  and  court 
may  be  presumed  to  be  less  biassed,  or,  as  is 
said,  the  venue  is  changed.  In  a  case  for  Indian 
justice,  arising  as  far  west  as  Colorado  or  Wy 
oming,  the  venue  would  need  to  be  changed  to 
a  county  east  of  the  Mississippi,  if  not  of  the 
Alleghanies. 

In  the  Indian  Territory,  legislation  and  the 
courts  have  illustrated  the  protection  of  the 
Indian  by  law.  Cases  arising  between  Indians 
they  handle  themselves ;  cases  between  In 
dians  and  whites  go  to  a  United  States  court 
in  Arkansas.  The  Indian  Commissioner,  for 
1874,  however,  says :  %t  Lawlessness  and  vio 
lence  still  continue  in  the  Indian  Territory.  .  .  . 
All  efforts  on  the  part  of  the  Indians  to  es 
tablish  a  government  have  failed.  Such  ad 
ministration  of  the  law  in  this  country,  as  is 
^possible  through  the  United  States  District 
Courts  of  Arkansas,  scarcely  deserves  the 
name.  Practically,  therefore,  we  have  a  coun 
try  embracing  62,253  square  miles,  inhabited 
by  more  than  75,000  souls,  including  50,000 
civilized  Indians,  without  the  protection  of 
law,  and  not  infrequently  the  scene  of  vio 
lence  and  wrong."  l 

1  "  Report,"  1874,  pp.  11,  12. 


50 


In  1880,  this  case  was  detailed  there,  to  the 
writer,  as  of  recent  date.  A  white  man  so 
cut  an  Indian  in  a  quarrel  that  he  was  bleed 
ing  to  death.  A  surgeon  was  called,  who  said 
he  could  save  his  life,  but  declined  to  do  ser 
vice,  or  see  the  patient,  and  so  let  the  Indian 
die.  His  reasons  for  refusal  were  that  the 
case  would  annoy  him  by  a  long,  distant,  and 
expensive  absence  at  Fort  Smith,  in  Arkansas, 
as  a  witness  against  a  white  man  ;  and  on  his 
return  his  life  would  be  in  great  peril,  for 
testifying  for  an  Indian  against  a  white  man. 
In  the  Report  of  the  Commissioner,  for  1880, 
Mr.  Walker  strongly  urges  additional  legisla 
tion  for  the  Indian  Territory,  to  protect  the 
property,  and  virtue,  and  person  of  the  In 
dians.  If,  in  that  compact  body  of  75,000,  so 
immediately  under  the  United  States,  the  ad 
ministration  of  law  "scarcely  deserves  the 
name,"  how  must  it  now  be  in  the  small  and 
isolated  reservations,  hemmed  in  by  semi-civ 
ilized  and  hostile  white  borders?  Will  citi 
zenship  and  land  in  severalty  carry  there  any 
thing  more  than  the  shadow  of  titles,  when 
the  new  theory  is  put  in  practice  ?  Will  there 
not  be  needed,  indispensable  to  success,  an 
element  of  power  underneath,  outside  and  co- 
working,  which  cannot  emanate  from  Wash 
ington  ? 


OF    THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  51 

An  Indian  can  have  but  a  poor  show  in 
court  in  the  region  where  such  facts  are  man 
ufactured  as  constitute  the  body  of  this  vol 
ume.  It  would  not  be  a  case  of  law  and 
evidence,  but  of  sentiment. 

Commissioner  Walker  makes  a  statement, 
pertinent  here,  and  deduced  from  wide  obser 
vation  :  "  The  principle  of  secluding  Indians 
from  whites,  for  the  good  of  both  races,  is 
established  by  an  overwhelming  preponder 
ance  .of  authority."  1 

But  the  time  is  passed  for  Indian  residence 
beyond  the  reach  of  white  men.  From  colo 
nial  times,  the  Americans  were  always  seeking 
for  lands  and  fortunes  beyond  the'  last  village, 
and  highway,  and  lone  cabin.  Nearer  to  the 
horizon  has  been  the  passion  and  watchword,  till 
trails  have  gone  everywhere  across  the  prairies, 
and  the  blazed  trees  have  marked  the  bridle 
paths  through  all  forests  and  over  all  mountains. 
The  Indians  cannot  be  secluded  from  the 
65,000,000  of  whites  in  this  country. 

SECTION    6.  —  Encouragement   lies  in  Broader 

Work. 

It  is   expecting  very  much  to  see  the  strong 
current,  so  long  adverse,  turn  favorably    and 
popularly  for   the   poor   Indian.     Yet  the  pros- 
1  "  Indian  Question,"  p.  63. 


52  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

pect  is  favorable.  The  revival  of  the  Indian 
question  is  quite  general,  the  study  of  it 
broader  than  ever  before,  and  the  discovery 
and  admission  of  our  national  mistakes  have 
been  well  made.  In  order  now  to  the  best 
chance  for  success,  itjrfrrn*\u*  to  see  and  con- 
fess  that  mudi__Qi  the  failure  lies  intly?  im 
perfect  white — e-ivilizaiip.iii  ^bordering  ow-  -feke 
Indians.  .  We  cannot  reach  the  Indians  with 
out  those  whites,  and  we  cannot  civilize  them 
with  such  whites.  The  humiliating  declara 
tion  of  the  old  Cherokee  must  be  kept  in 
sight:  "'No  Indian  can  possibly  live  among 
such  white  people  as  will  first  settle  our 
country." 

A  more  thorough  policy  and  process  of  white 
civilization  on  the  border  must  precede  a  more 
successful  Indian  civilization.  For  evidently 
a  higher  Christian  tone  in  border  life  is  indis 
pensable  to  turn  the  tide  and  stay  this  mortify 
ing  failure.  In  our  marvellous  interior  growth, 
educating  and  Christian  influences  have  not 
been  made  to  keep  abreast  of  our  immigration 
and  agricultural  and  mining  and  railroad 
development.  For  nearly  forty  years  we  have 
had  mining  regions,  and  for  twenty  years  they 
have  been  many  times  the  area  of  New  Eng 
land,  with  their  beginnings  of  cities  and  States, 
into  which  educating  and  Christianizing  forces 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  53 

have  moved  much  later,  and  are  still  moving  in 
tardil}*.  All  these  were  white  centres  in  the 
Indian  country.  The  early  neglect  of  these, 
because  they  did  not  furnish  pleasant  openings 
and  calls  to  benevolent  and  civilizing  work, 
has  had  much  to  do  in  loading  down  the 
Indian  question  with  difficulties  and  dishonors. 
It  is  no  comfortable  thing  to  be  said  or  seen  or 
inferred,  that  American  Christianity  does  not 
keep  pace  with  American  capital  and  immigra 
tion  and  industrial  energies,  as  the  nation 
moves  west. 

This  whole  inquiry  shows  a  failure  to  pre 
serve  and  locate  permanently  and  civilize  the 
Indians,  through  a  lack  of  moral  element  on  the 
white  border.  The  government  has  not  been 
able  to  keep  its  faith  and  honor  in  dealing  with 
them,  since  the  people,  whose  voice  the  gov 
ernment  is,  have  not  toned  up  the  govern 
ment,  and  strengthened  it  morally  to  bear 
the  hand  of  equity  to  the  red  man.  Our  new 
and  semi-Indian  country,  always  in  the  major 
ity,  has  shaped  the  Indian  policy,  while  we 
have  failed  to  mould  that  country  for  the  high 
est  civil  and  religious  ends.  For  one  of  two 
inferences  is  irresistible,  —  either  American 
Christianity  is  not  adequate  to  civilize  the 
Indians,  or  we  have  not  properly  applied  it. 
Apparently  the  failure  has  been  to  civilize  and 


54  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

Christianize  the  white  border  to  such  an  extent 
as  to  secure  its  moral  respect  and  toleration  for 
an  Indian  reservation,  which  the  faith  of  the 
government  has  guaranteed. 

Now,  at  this  late  day  of  disaster,  to  give 
citizenship  and  land  in  severalty  to  the  Indian, 
without  touching  the  cause  of  so  much  degra 
dation  at  white  hands,  will  be  still  to  delude 
and  degrade  with  shadows  of  better  name  and 
a  gilding.  Probably  the  best  thing  to  be  done 
for  the  Indian  is  to  give  him  a  qualified  citizen 
ship,  and  land  in  fee-simple  under  stringent  and 
guarding  conditions.  Yet  these  gifts  will 
prove  a  peril  and  a  mockery  if  not  accompanied 
by  the  elevating  influences  which  white  neigh 
bors  have  failed  to  furnish.  While  the  Amer 
ican  church  is  able  to  reconstruct  the  religions 
of  the  old  world,  and  make  civilized  nations  out 
of  pagan  ones,  it  will  expose  her  administra 
tion  of  Christianity  to  grave  criticism  by  later 
historians  if  she  has  not  been  willing  to  save 
the  native  races  of  her  own  country  from  ex 
tinction. 

With  a  steady  failure,  for  250  years,  to  per 
petuate  the  Indian  tribes,  and  to  civilize,  edu 
cate,  and  Christianize  them  ;  with  but  a  humil 
iating  success  in  engrafting  on  the  Indian 
stock  the  industries  of  the  whites;  with  a 
progressive  and  almost  total  extinction  of 


OF    THE    INDIAN    QUESTION.  55 

Indian  titles,  and  absorption  of  Indian  lands 
westward  to  the  Mississippi  ;*  wjtJi  t-hifi  f™"- 
tiei:  tone  toward  the  Indian,  and  witli  this  kind 
of  white  civilizatic^  tjiaji__^^  Tndiaa. 

belt  and  Tftaftrvfttions  —  will  citizenship  and 
lands  in  severalty  prove  sufiiuient  remedies? 

It  is  sometimes  one  half  of  the  victory  about 
to  be  won  to-day,  to  have  discovered  where 
we  failed  yesterday;  and  sometimes  it  is  like 
doubling  our  forces  to  ascertain  the  weakest 
place  in  the  lines  of  the  enemy.  We  start  off 
with  much  of  hope  and  confidence  in  this  new 
movement  for  Indian  civilization  after  having 
gained  the  secret  of  our  failures  hitherto.  The 
environment,  the  ab  extra  conditions  of  this  race, 
have  foreordained  the  neutralization  and  failure 
of  our  endeavors.  For  we  will  not  admit  that 
our  common  Christianity  and  our  American 
civilization  properly  applied  cannot  make  a  fair 
Christian  and  a  fair  citizen  out  of  an  American 
Indian. 


56  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 


CHAPTER    II. 

THE    CHEROKEE    EXPERIMENT.       THE    RESERVA 
TION    SYSTEM    A    FAILURE. 

ONE  case  is  worth  two  theories  on  the  Indian 
question,  and  if  a  century  of  trials  has  not 
made  it  evident  what  we  can  do  with  the 
aborigines,  it  has  shown  conclusively  that  cer 
tain  things  cannot  be  done.  Probably  a  better 
case  could  not  "be  selected  to  illustrate  our 
successes  and  failures  with  the  Indian  than  the 
Cherokee,  since  the  government  and  our  benev 
olent  societies  have  had  this  tribe  on  hand 
longer  than  any  other,  and  with  more  liberal 
expense,  arid  through  and  around  them  have 
tested  so  many  legal  questions  and  civil  and 
social  problems  of  Indian  and  white  neighbor 
hood.  A  few  facts  will  present  the  Cherokee 
experiment. 

SECTION    1.  —  Indian   Farmers    among    White 
Farmers. 

The  original  and  first  claim  on  the  soil  in 
North  America  is  an  Indian  ri<rht  to  occupation 
and  use.  In  the  sixteen  treaties  of  the  United 
States  with  the  Cherokees,  this  claim  was  con- 


OF   THE  INDIAN   QUESTION.  57 

ceded  to  them  and  respected  by  our  govern 
ment.  The  first  five  Presidents  rested  treaties 
with  the  Indians  on  this  claim.  In  the  fifteenth 
with  the  Cherokees,  1817,  which  stipulated  for 
their  going  over  the  Mississippi,  this  was  the 
eighth  article :  "  To  every  head  of  an  Indian 
family,  residing  on  the  lands  ceded  by  the 
Cherokees  in  this  treaty,  shall  be  allowed  a 
section  of  land,  that  is,  640  acres,  provided  he 
wishes  to  remain  on  the  land  thus  ceded,  and 
to  become  a  citizen  of  the  United  States.  He 
shall  hold  a  life  estate,  with  a  right  of  dower 
to  his  widow,  and  shall  leave  the  land  in  fee- 
simple  to  his  children." 

The  State  of  Georgia  claimed  from  Colonial 
rights  the  lands  west  of  her  present  limits  to 
the  Mississippi,  that  is,  the  present  territory  of 
Alabama  and  Mississippi.  Large  tracts  in  this 
western  claim  she  sold,  then  repealed  the  law 
under  which  the  sale  was  made,  and  declared 
the  titles  of  sale  void.  The  case  went  to  the 
Supreme  Court,  which  ruled  that  the  State 
must  indemnify  the  purchasers.  The  "  Yazoo 
fraud,"  so  called,  is  a  long  story.  Suffice  it  to 
say,  Georgia  ceded  to  the  United  States  all  her 
right,  title,  and  claim  to  what  is  now  the  terri 
tory  of  those  two  States,  and  the  United  States 
promised,  in  return,  $1,250,000,  from  the  first 
net  proceeds  from  the  sale  of  these  lands. 


58  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

This  was  not  in  payment  for  the  land,  or  for 
any  claim  on  it,  but  "  as  a  consideration  for 
the  expenses  incurred  by  the  said  State,  in  re 
lation  to  the  said  territory."  It  was  also  stipu 
lated  that  "  The  United  States  shall,  at  their 
own  expense,  extinguish,  for  the  use  of  Georgia, 
as  early  as  the  same  can  be  peaceably  obtained, 
on  reasonable  terms,  .  .  .  the  Indian  title  to 
all  lands  within  the  State  of  Georgia."  Such, 
for  substance  to  our  purpose,  was  "  the  compact 
of  1802,"  so  called. 

It  would  seem  that  the  Cherokees  had  pos 
sessed,  in  Colonial  days,  "  more  than  half  of  the 
State  of  Tennessee,  the  southern  part  of  Ken 
tucky,  the  southwest  corner  of  Virginia,  a  con 
siderable  portion  of  both  the  Carolinas,  a  small 
portion  of  Georgia,  and  the  northern  part  of 
Alabama."  Here  were  about  35,000,000  acres, 
more  than  seven  times  the  area  of  Massachu 
setts.  Between  1783  and  1820  they  quit 
claimed  more  than  three  fourths  of  this  to  the 
United  States,  and  then  declined  to  sell  more. 
Of  the  balance,  5,000,000  acres  were  claimed 
by  Georgia,  as  within  her  State  limits,  and  in 
that  claim  and  its  outcome  the  "  Cherokee 
Question  "  took  on  its  troublesome  features, 
mortifying  and  humiliating  to  the  United  States, 
disheartening  and  decivilizing^to  the  Cherokees, 
and  ominously,  painfully  prophetic  to  all  our 
Indian  tribes. 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  59 

By  the  compact  of  1802  the  United  States 
had  promised  to  extinguish  the  Indian  title  in 
Georgia  at  as  early  a  date  as  it  could  be  done 
peaceably,  yet  if  the  natives  preferred  to  remain 
there  was  nothing  in  any  treaty  or  precedent  of 
the  government  that  could  force  their  removal. 
They  could  remain  from  generation  to  genera 
tion.  Moreover,  in  the  treaty  of  Holstou, 
eleven  years  before,  was  this  article  :  "  That  the 
Cherokee  nation  may  be  led  to  a  greater  degree 
of  civilization,  and  to  become  herdsmen  and 
cultivators,  instead  of  remaining  in  a  state  of 
hunters,  the  United  States  will,  from  time  to 
time,  furnish,  gratuitously,  the  said  nation 
with  useful  implements  of  husbandry ;  and  fur 
ther  to  assist  the  said  nation  in  so  desirable  a 
pursuit,"  etc. 

It  is  quite  evident  that  the  government  was 
sincere,  and  more  or  less  active,  in  its  earlier 
days,  to  civilize  the  Indians  and  retain  them 
permanently  on  their  old  and  reserved  hunting- 
grounds.  The  Delaware  treaty,  in  1778,  even 
contemplated  an  Indian  State,  with  its  repre 
sentative  in  Congress,  and  the  twelfth  article 
of  the  Hopewell  treaty,  1785,  says:  "They 
shall  have  a  right  to  send  a  deputy  of  their 
own,  whenever  they  think  fit,  to  Congress." 
The  Delawares  are  now  in  the  Indian  Terri 
tory  ;  they  numbered  71  souls  in  1885,  and  are 


60  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

combined  with  eight  or  ten  tribes  under  one 
agency.  Therefore,  the  Cherokees  were  en 
couraged  and  aided  by  the  government  and  by 
benevolent  societies  to  develop  agriculture, 
plant  towns,  establish  a  system  of  laws,  found 
schools  and  churches ;  in  brief,  do  just  what  is 
being  done  to-day  for  the  Indians.  With  a 
full  faith  in  the  wishes  and  promises  of  the 
government,  the  Cherokees  made  quite  as  much 
advance  in  these  lines  as  could  be  expected. 

They  began  to  dispose  of  their  lands  in  order 
to  lessen  the  range  of  hunting-ground,  and  take 
on  agricultural  limits  as  well  as  pursuits.  They 
welcomed  secular  and  religious  teachers,  and 
agriculture,  education,  and  religion  carried 
them  upward,  so  that  in  1808  a  teacher,  ap 
pointed  by  the  General  Assembly  of  the 
Presbyterian  Church,  reported :  "  The  period 
has  at  last  arrived  on  which  I  have  long 
fixed  my  eager  eye.  The  Cherokee  nation 
has,  at  length,  determined  to  become  men 
and  citizens.  A  few  days  ago,  in  full  council, 
they  adopted  a  constitution,  which  embraces  a 
simple  principle  of  government.  The  legisla 
tive  and  judicial  powers  are  vested  in  a  general 
council,  and  lesser  ones  subordinate.  All  crim 
inal  accusations  must  be  established  by  testi 
mony."  1 

i  "His.  of  Am.  Board,"  p.  68. 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  61 

SECTION  2.  —  Mixed  Society  :  The  civilizing 
Indian  :  the  wild  Indian  :  the  hostile  White 
Man. 

It  was  quite  natural  that  a  portion  of  the 
tribe  should  prefer  to  continue  the  free,  lazy, 
and  wild  hunter-life  of  their  ancestry  and 
childhood.  A  delegation  to  Washington  drew 
a  dividing  line.  The  Upper  Towns  asked 
for  a  permanent  allotment  of  their  propor 
tion  o'f  the  lands,  that  they  might  settle 
down  in  perpetuity  in  their  old  homes  and 
new  farms  in  Georgia,  and  follow  a  civilized 
life.  The  Lower  Towns  asked  for  an  exchange 
of  their  proportion  of  land  for  new  homes 
beyond  the  Mississippi,  where  they  could  in 
dulge,  without  molestation,  their  hereditary 
passion  for  the  wigwam  and  the  chase. 

It  was  easy  for  the  government  to  send  ex 
plorers,  as  it  did,  to  select  wild  lands  for  the 
Lower  Towns  in  the  remote  West,  but  the 
welcome  evidence  of  a  growing  civilization, 
and  a  disinclination  of  two  thirds  of  the  tribe 
to  leave  Georgia,  annoyed  the  citizens  and 
perplexed  the  general  government,  as  it  was 
obligated  to  remove  them  as  early  as  it  could 
be  done  amicably.  The  theory  of  the  govern 
ment  was  to  civilize  and  establish  them  where 
they  were,  while  the  Holston  treaty  and  Geor- 


62  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

gia  contemplated  their  ultimate  removal.  The 
perplexity  of  the  government  was  the  greater, 
since  the  civilizing  agencies  and  influences 
that  were  lifting  the  Cherokees  toward  in 
telligent  and  thrifty  citizenship  were  from 
abroad.  The  State  of  Georgia  and  the  white 
neighborhood  of  these  natives  were  not  aiding 
and  abetting  in  this  work.  While  the  Indian 
farms  and  growing  villages  were  in  the  wilds  of 
her  interior  or  borders,  that  State  was  indiffer 
ent  to  what  foreign  benevolence  was  doing 
within  her  boundaries.  So  the  colony  of 
Oglethorpe  began  to  fall  into  line,  with  all 
the  older  ones,  in  the  consent  that  Indian 
farming  is  a  good  theory,  and  an  Indian  farm 
a  good  thing — afar  off.  The  nearer  they  came 
to  being  "  persons  of  industry  and  capable  of 
managing  their  property  with  discretion,"  —  as 
many  were  recognized  and  named  in  the  Calhoun 
treaty  of  1819,  when  one  square  mile  was  se 
cured  in  fee-simple  to  each  of  those,  —  the  more 
unwelcome  they  were  to  the  whites. 

In  this  divided  public  sentiment  and  sym 
pathy  on  the  Indian  question,  the  general 
government  adopted  a  divided  policy,  which 
is  quite  natural  where  the  people  rule.  They 
provided  for  those  who  w^uld  go,  and  for 
those  who  would  stay,  and  progress  was  made 
only  as  fast  as  white  settlements  and  specula- 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  63 

tive  land  interests  advanced  on  the  reserva 
tions.  "  The  Cherokees  did  not  show  them 
selves  unwilling  to  sell  their  lands  so  long  as 
an  adequate  motive  was  presented  to  their 
minds.  During  every  administration  of  our 
national  government,  applications  were  made 
to  them  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  additional 
portions  of  their  territory.  These  applications 
were  urged,  not  only  nor  principally  by  the 
consideration  of  the  money  or  presents  which 
they  were  to  receive  in  exchange,  but  often 
and  strongly  by  the  consideration  that  they 
would  become  an  agricultural  people,  like  the 
whites  ;  that  it  was  for  their  interest  to  have 
their  limits  circumscribed,  so  that  their  young 
men  could  not  have  a  great  extent  of  country  to 
hunt  in  ;  and  that,  when  they  became  attached 
to  the  soil,  and  engaged  in  its  cultivation,  the 
United  States  would  not  ask  them  to  sell  any 
more  land.  Yielding  to  these  arguments,  and 
to  the  importunities  of  the  whites,  the  Chero 
kees  sold,  at  different  times,  between  the  close 
of  the  Revolutionary  War  and  the  year  1820, 
more  than  three  quarters  of  theiroriginal  inher 
itance."  l 

Indian  matters  lingered  and  progressed,  and 

1  "William  Penn  on  the  Indian  Crisis,"  1829,  p.  8,  — an 
admirable  pamphlet  of  twenty-four  letters  from  "  The 
National  Intelligencer." 


64  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

white  settlements  in  Georgia  advanced,  and 
land  speculators  and  Indian  men  showed  in 
creased  activity. 

On  the  8th  of  July,  1817,  a  most  important 
treaty  was  arranged  with  the  Cherokees,  well 
illustrating  those  white  pressures  on  Indian 
reservations  that  have  gone  grinding  over  them 
like  Arctic  ice-floes  over  capes  and  islands 
and  Eskimo  huts.  It  ceded  lar^e  tracts  of 

o 

land  to  the  United  States,  provided  for  a  census 
of  the  Cherokees  who  preferred  to  go  over  the 
Mississippi,  divided  the  annuities  in  ratio  be 
tween  those  remaining  and  those  going,  granted 
land,  acre  for  acre,  beyond  the  Misssissippi  to 
those  who  might  leave,  paid  for  improvements 
on  lands  left  by  the  emigrants,  and  ceded,  se 
cured,  in  fee-simple,  640  acres  to  every  head  of 
an  Indian  family  who  preferred  to  remain  where 
he  then  resided  within  any  large  ceded  tract, 
and  to  become  a  citizen  of  the  United  States, 
reaffirmed  all  previous  treaties  with  the  Chero 
kees,  and  provided  flat-boat  transportation  and 
provisions  to  the  emigrating  party.  This  treaty 
is  signed  by  Andrew  Jackson  and  other  com 
missioners,  and  by  thirty-one  chiefs  and  war 
riors  of  the  party  who  were  to  remain,  and  by 
fifteen  of  those  of  the  purt-v  who  were  to  emi 
grate. 

As    to    the    quality   and    condition   of   those 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  65 

who  then  went  over  the  Mississippi  and  set 
tled  in  the  recently  organized  Indian  Terri 
tory,  one  statement  will  illustrate.  Speaking 
of  the  Cherokees  along  the  Arkansas  and 
below  Mulberry  River,  Major  Long  says: 
"  These  settlements,  in  respect  to  the  com 
forts  and  conveniences  of  life  they  afford,  ap 
pear  to  vie  with,  and  in  many  instances  even 
surpass  those  of  the  Americans  in  that  part  of 
the  country/' 1 

In  1819  one  more  treaty  was  made  with  the 
Cherokees.  Its  preamble  states  the  fact  that 
"  the  greater  part  of  the  Cherokee  nation  have 
expressed  an  earnest  desire  to  remain  on  this 
side  of  the  Mississippi,"  and  wish  "to  com 
mence  those  measures  which  they  deem  neces 
sary  to  the  civilization  and  preservation  of 
their  nation."  The  treaty  is  mostly  a  provis 
ion  of  ways  and  means  for  carrying  out  the 
preceding  one,  and  also  sets  apart  100,000 
acres  of  the  ceded  territory  for  school  pur 
poses  on  the  unceded,  assigns  one  third  of  the 
annuities  to  the  emigrating  body,  and  forbids 
whites  to  enter  on  the  ceded  lands  prior  to 
January  1,  1820. 


1  Long's    "  Expedition    from    Pittsburg    to    the  JRocky 
Mountains,"  1819-20  ;    vol.  ii.  p.  347. 


66  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 


SECTION  3.  —  Indian  Civilization  Adjourned. 

Meanwhile  the  emigrating  ones  took  up  their 
sad  journey  toward  the  setting  sun,  after  the 
usage  of  all  red  men  since  white  men  settled 
on  the  Atlantic  coast.  Of  course  it  may  be 
said,  in  technical  and  strictly  legal  phrase,  that 
they  went  freely,  yet  the  emigration  was  origi 
nated  and  consummated  by  the  most  over 
bearing  forces  known  to  civil  and  social  life. 
Extracts  from  missionary  records  will  suggest 
the  painful  and  humiliating  facts. 

"Nov.  4,  1818.  The  parents  of  Catherine 
Brown  called  on  us.  The  old  gray-headed 
man,  with  tears  in  his  eyes,  said  he  must  go 
over  the  Mississippi.  The  white  people  would 
not  suffer  him  to  live  here.  They  had  stolen 
his  cattle,  horses,  and  hogs,  until  he  had  very 
little  left.  He  expected  to  return  from  the 
agency  in  about  ten  days,  and  should  then 
want  Catherine  to  go  home  and  prepare  to 
go  with  him  to  the  Arkansas.  .  .  .  These 
people  consider  the  offer  of  taking  reserves, 
and  becoming  citizens  of  the  United  States, 
as  of  no  service  to  them.  They  know  they  are 
not,  to  be  admitted  to  the  rights  of  freemen, 
or  the  privilege  of  their  oath,  and  say  no  Cher 
okee,  or  white  man  with  a  Cherokee  family, 


OF   THE   INDIAN  QUESTION.  '  67 

can  possibly  live  among  such  white  people  as 
will  first  settle  this  country. 

"Nov.  28.  The  great  talk,  for  which  the 
people  began  to  assemble  on  the  20th  of  Octo 
ber,  was  closed  yesterday.  The  United  States 
commissioners  proposed  to  the  Cherokees  an 
entire  change  of  country,  except  such  as  chose 
to  take  reserves,  and  come  under  the  govern 
ment  of  the  United  States.  This  proposition 
they  unanimously  rejected,  and  continued  to 
reject,  as  often  as  repeated,  urging  that  the 
late  treaty  might  be  closed  as  soon  as  possible. 
Nothing  was  done."  l 

One  other  treaty,  and  only  one,  was  formed 
with  the  Cherokees  of  Georgia.  We  have 
already  outlined  it,  —  the  one  of  1819.  After 
this  the  citizens  of  Georgia,  and  politicians  and 
speculators  outside,  at  Washington  and  else 
where,  struggled,  by  various  expedients,  to 
reopen  negotiations  for  the  extinguishing  of 
more  Indian  title  and  the  removal  of  more 
Indians,  but  in  vain.  They  pressed  Congress 
for  appropriations  to  aid  in  reopening  —  a 
white  man's  bargain  with  red  men  is  very 
expensive ;  .  the  entire  administration  of  Mr. 
Monroe  was  teased  for  this  purpose ;  but 
chiefs  and  warriors,  at  home  and  at  Washing 
ton,  refused  energetically.  They  declared  in 
1  "  His.  of  Am.  Board,"  p.  75. 


68  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

writing  that  the  treasury  of  the  United  States 
had  not  money  enough  to  buy  another  foot  of 
Cherokee  land.  Georgia,  impatient  of  the  gov 
ernment  delay  and  failure,  and  trying  for  several 
years  to  reopen  treaty  negotiations  with  the 
Indians  for  the  rest  of  their  lands  within  the 
State,  and  obtaining  only  the  stern  refusal  to 
sell  more,  first  upbraids  the  government  for  not 
making  another  treaty  and  procuring  the  rest 
of  the  Indian  lands,  and  then  takes  the  ground 
that  the  Indian  tribes  are  in  no  such  sense  a 
nation  as  that  a  treaty  can  be  formed  with  them, 
and  that  no  treaty  proper  has  been  formed 
with  them  by  the  general  government,  or  is 
necessary  in  order  to  remove  them  and  take 
possession  of  their  lands ;  that  prior  to  the 
compact  of  1802  Georgia,  by  her  own  right  as 
a  sovereign  State,  could  have  taken  those  lands 
either  by  negotiation  or  force,  as  she  might 
elect,  but  consented  to  have  the  general  gov 
ernment  do  it  at  government  expense.  This 
was  in  1827. 

SECTION  4.  —  Indian  Civilization  Fatally  Struck. 

In  the  following  year  this  law  was  passed 
by  the  Legislature  of  Georgia,  and  approved  : 
"  That  all  laws,  usages,  and  customs,  made, 
established,  and  in  force  in  the  said  territory, 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  69 

by  the  said  Cherokee  Indians,  be,  and  the  same 
are  hereby,  on  and  after  the  first  day  of  June, 
1830,  declared  null  and  void  ; 

"That  no  Indian,  or  descendant  of  an  Ind 
ian,  residing  within  the  Creek  or  Cherokee 
nations  of  Indians,  shall  be  deemed  a  compe 
tent  witness,  or  a  party  to  any  suit,  in  any 
court  created  by  the  Constitution  or  laws  of  this 
State,  to  which  a  white  man  may  be  a  party." 

This  law  did  two  things.  It  disbanded  and 
dissolved  the  Cherokee  nation  as  a  civil 
organization.  Its  elections,  legislature,  courts, 
and  all  other  civil  proceeding  of  government 
were  made  null  and  void.  It  put  the  Chero 
kee  tribe  under  another  government  as  totally 
as  if  they  had  been  kidnapped ;  and  it  so  out 
lawed  them  as  to  deny  them  a  standing  in  the 
courts  of  Georgia,  except  as  criminals.  From 
time  immemorial,  under  both  king  and  presi 
dent,  they  had  been  subject  to  no  jurisdiction 
but  their  own.  This  iron  foot  of  Georgia 
crushed  barbarously  through  all  their  machin 
ery  of  government,  and  annihilated  their  prop 
erty,  by  first  destroying  the  laws  under  which 
they  had  acquired  it,  and  then  thrust 
ing  them  under  a  government  that  ignored 
them  and  alienated  it.  The  avowed  purpose 
was  to  expel  them  from  lands  that  were  their 
own  before  Columbus  saw  America. 


70  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

The  issue  is  now  complete,  and  the  three 
parties  have  made  it  triangular.  The  general 
government  has  promised  to  extinguish  the 
title  to  all  Indian  lands  in  Georgia,  and  for  the 
use  of  that  State,  "as  early  as  the  same  can 
be  peaceably  obtained,  on  reasonable  terms/' 
The  title  to  about  three  fourths  had  been  so 
extinguished,  and  about  6,000,000  of  acres  re 
mained  in  Indian  title.  This  was  secured  to 
the  Cherokees,  till  thej^  should  be  willing  to 
quitclaim  it,  under  an  older  treaty,  in  which 
the  government  say  they  "will  continue  the 
guarantee  of  the  remainder  of  their  country 
forever."  The  Cherokees,  as  the  second  party, 
after  a  month's  discussion,  and  in  much 
warmth,  have  vigorously  determined  to  sell 
no  more  land.  Then  Georgia,  seeing  the 
failure  of  the  government,  and  the  refusal  of 
the  Indians,  and  after  trying  seven  years  to 
overcome  the  inability  of  the  one  and  the  un 
willingness  of  the  other,  formally  declares,  in 
her  Legislature,  that  "it  is  unquestionably 
true,  that,  under  such  circumstance,  force  be 
comes  right."  Then,  in  her  own  sovereignty, 
she  declares  the  Indian  title  null  and  void, 
breaks  up  their  government,  tramples  on  their 
young  civilization,  treats  J]em  as  tenants  at 
will,  and  orders  them  out  of  the  country. 

As  we  have  now  to  do  with  facts  and  not 


OF   THE   INDIAN    QUESTION.  71 

feelings,  we  glide  along  to  results.  This  was 
a  good  time  for  our  nation  to  make  a  move 
upward  to  that  highest  grade  of  national  honor, 
which  develops  in  a  sacred  regard  for  treaty 
obligations,  into  the  assuming  of  which  Hamil 
ton,  in  the  seventy-fifth  number  of  the  "  Fed 
eralist  "  says  there  enters  "  a  nice  and  uniform 
sensibility  to  national  honor."  From  first  to 
last  the  United  States  had  said  to  all  her 
Indian  wards  what  she  said  in  the  treaty  of 
Holston,  1791 :  "  The  United  States  solemnly 
guarantee  to  the  Cherokee  nation  all  their 
lands,  not  hereby  ceded."  The  government 
was  solemnly  pledged  to  stand  between  them 
and  fraud  and  violence.  If  treaty  and  policy 
and  promise  and  growth  may  not  be  sustained 
here,  can  the  government  make  a  stand  any 
where  for  the  Indians  within  or  beyond  the 
Rocky  Mountains? 

If  the  antipathies  of  race  and  color  and 
semi-civilization  and  greed  of  land  may  break 
through  here,  can  American  civilization  and 
the  American  administration  of  Christianity 
set  an  irresistible  barrier  anywhere  else  between 
the  Mississippi  and  the  Pacific  ?  If  the  Indian 
must  here  see  all  equity  and  treaty  and  pledge 
and  promising  civilization  blotted  out,  can  he 
ever,  in  the  future,  trust  in  the  government,  or 
hope  for  a  permanent  home,  or  labor  heartily  to 


72 


obtain  a  white  man's  civilization  ?  All  these 
questions  stood  around  the  Speaker's  table  in 
the  Georgia  Legislature  on  that  ominous  De 
cember  20,  1828. 

SECTION  5.  —  Border    White  Men  Superior  to 
the  United  States. 

But  national  honor,  treaties,  government, 
and  benevolent  plans  for  elevating  the  abor 
igines,  the  reservation  theory,  a  germinant  and 
promising  civilization,  the  flattering  and  invigo 
rating  anticipations  of  the  red  man,  —  all  were 
swept  away  by  that  December  vote,  and  the 
winter  of  their  discontent  set  in  on  the 
Indians. 

They  appealed  to  the  Secretary  of  War  that 
they  be  protected  in  the  possession  of  their 
land  and  government,  according  to  national 
guarantee,  now  forty  years  old,  and  reaffirmed 
in  six  separate  treaties.  The  reply  is  made 
through  the  Secretary,  and  under  direction  o'f 
the  President,  "that  no  remedy  can  be  per 
ceived,  except  that  which  frequently  heretofore 
lias  been  submitted  to  your  consideration,  —  a 
removal  beyond  the  Mississippi,  where  alone 
can  be  assured  to  you  protection  and  peace. '? 
.  .  .  They  must  "yield  to  the  operation  of 
those  laws  which  Georgia  claims  and  has  a 


OF   THE   INDIAN  QUESTION.  73 

right  to  extend  throughout  her  own  limits,  or 
to  remove  beyond  the  Mississippi,  .  .  .  carry 
ing  along  with  you  that  protection  which, 
there  situated,  it  will  be  in  the  power  of  the 
government  to  extend."  1 

In  order  to  dispossess  and  remove  the  Ind 
ians,  the  plan  was  matured  by  Georgia  to  seize 
all  their  lands,  divide  them  into  parcels  of  140 
acres  each,  and  dispose  of  them  by  lottery. 
The  scheme  appealed  well  to  the  speculator 
and  demagogue  and  border  white  man.  Natu 
rally  the  missionaries  would  be  in  the  way  in 
executing  this  programme,  and  a  law  was 
passed  for  the  purpose  of  expelling  them,  and 
under  it  they  were  cast  into  the  penitentiary, 
and  the  missions  broken  up.  With  great  in 
dignities  and  severity  and  cruelty,  these  men  of 
God  were  chained  to  each  other  by  the  ankle 
in  pairs,  or,  with  chain  and  padlock  on  the 
neck,  were  made  fast  to  a  horse  or  cart,  and  so 
compelled,  on  foot,  to  traverse  rough  and  wild 
ways,  some  of  them  even  fifty  miles.  They  ap 
pealed  to  the  President  for  relief,  but  he  de 
clined  to  interfere,  on  the  ground  that  Georgia 
was  sovereign  for  all  such  matters  within  her 
own  boundaries.  The  case  went  to  the  Su 
preme  Court,  when  Chief  Justice  Marshall 
declared  the  act  of  Georgia,  in  extending  her 

1  "  Records  of  the  Department  of  War,"  April  18,  1829. 


74  THE  INDIAN'S  RIDE 

jurisdiction  over  the  Cherokee  lands,  repugnant 
to  the  Constitution,  treaties,  and  laws  of  the 
United  States,  and  therefore  null  and  void,  and 
ordered  the  discharge  of  the  missionaries.  The 
Georgia  court  refused  the  mandate,  and  so  set 
the  United  States  Supreme  Court  at  defiance. 
Afterward  the  Legislature  repealed  the  uncon 
stitutional  law.  After  much  aggravating  delay, 
and  the  cultivation  of  "  nullification,"  the  mis 
sionaries  were  discharged,  yet  with  great  lack 
of  dignity  and  manliness  on  the  part  of  the 
authorities.  This  was  in  1833.  A  short  time 
before,  Webster  had  made  his  remarkable 
speech  against  nullification,  but  Georgia  was 
still  affected  somewhat  with  that  political 
heresy. 

SECTION  6.  —  The   Sad  Journey  of  Sixteen 
Thousand  into  Exile. 

Prior  to  this,  and  meanwhile,  the  work  went 
on  of  despoiling  the  poor  Cherokees.  The 
lottery  was  drawn  in  the  autumn  of  1832, 
amid  the  revels  of  whiskey  and  debauchery, 
in  which  many  good  Cherokees  stumbled, 
being  abandoned  of  the  general  government 
and  disheartened.  The  removal  was  mainly 
in  1838,  and  the  number  abcut  16,000.  They 
persistently  refused  to  go  unless  forced,  yet 
said  they  would  not  resist.  Some  thousands 


OF   THE    INDIAN   QUESTION.  75 

of  United  States  troops  went  into  their  coun 
try,  under  General  Scott,  and  began  the  work 
by  making  prisoners  of  single  families,  and 
thus  gathering  them  into  groups.  Fourteen 
camp  divisions  were  made,  and  finally  the  sad 
march  began.  Ten  months  from  the  time 
they  began  to  be  gathered,  this  sad  exodus 
commenced.  The  distance  was  about  700 
miles,  and  the  time  was  four  to  five  months. 
Credit  is  given  for  good  management  and 
kindness  in  the  sorrowful  work,  yet  in  the 
removal  about  4000  sunk  under  the  trials, 
—  about  one  in  four  of  the  whole  number 
died.  •'  Their  sufferings  were  greatly  aggra 
vated  by  the  conduct  of  lawless  Georgians, 
who  rushed  ravenously  into  the  country,  seized 
the  property  of  Cherokees,  as  soon  as  they 
were  arrested,  appropriated  it  to  their  own 
use,  or  sold  it  for  a  trifle  to  each  other  before 
the  eyes  of  its  owners ;  thus  reducing  even 
the  rich  to  absolute  indigence,  and  depriving 
families  of  comforts  which  they  were  about  to 
need  in  their  long  and  melancholy  march."  l 

We  follow  these  wanderers  and  exiles  from 
the  white  settlements  with  an  intense  sympa 
thy  and  suspense.  They  have  gone  over  the 
Mississippi,  not  merely  under  the  pressure  of 
Georgia,  or  of  one  President,  or  Secretary  of 
1  "  His.  Am.  Board,"  p.  372. 


76  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

War.  Taking  the  most  apologetic  or  sectional 
view  of  the  case  that  can  be  taken,  the  re 
moval,  excepting  certain  atrocities  in  it,  was  a 
national  removal,  and,  under  the  chronic  pres 
sure  of  two  centuries,  Congress  indorsed  it  as 
the  voice  of  the  people,  and  in  the  line  of  an 
old  adopted  policy.  Sharper  points  in  that 
policy  were  then  developed,  but  they  were 
sustained.  The  opposition  to  them  came  from 
the  older  States,  from  which  the  Indians  had 
been  mostly  removed,  but  the  newer  States,  — 
through  which  there  were  yet  scattered  rem 
nants  of  tribes, —  and  our  border  life  and  the 
wilder  elements  of  the  frontier  prevailed.  In 
long  struggles  over  Indian  issues  these  have 
alwaj^s  carried  a  majority.  Neither  Georgia, 
therefore,  nor  that  Congress  or  administration 
is  to  be  reproached  preeminently.  They  were 
only  an  index,  for  the  time,  of  a  national 
spirit  that  two  thirds  of  the  country  has  some 
how  always  made  predominant. 


SECTION  7.  —  Another  Morning  Overclouded. 

But  let  us  follow  up  the  new  experiment, 
inaugurated  by  the  completion  of  the  Chero 
kee  removal  in  1838.  A  reservation  was  as 
signed  to  them  that  now  appears  to  be  7861 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  77 

square  miles,  —  nearly  as  large  as  Massachu 
setts.  *  Schools  and  Indian  agents,  churches 
and  ploughs,  and  human  sympathies  followed 
them  ;  also,  white  emigration,  and  speculators 
in  wild  lands,  race  prejudices,  and  whiskey, 
and  semi-civilization.  Into  that  total  Indian 
Territory  of  62,253  square  miles,  —  nearly  as 
large  as  eight  States  like  Massachusetts,  —  and 
around  the  Cherokees,  the  government  has 
located  about  forty  tribes.  Around  this  Ter 
ritory  we  have  also  located  —  and  since  it  was 
set  apart  for  the  Indians  —  the  States  of  Mis 
souri,  Arkansas,  Texas,  and  Kansas  —  young 
members  in  the  American  family,  and  full  of 
the  blood  of  youth  and  growth,  and,  of  course, 
ambitious  for  good  neighborhood.  In  the 
strong  tide  of  emigration  that  has  set  toward 
the  south-west,  and  specially  since  the  war,  this 
Indian  Territory  has  lifted  itself  up  in  the  cur 
rent  midway,  and  made  it  divide  right  and  left. 
This  is  a  condition  exposed  to  any  damaging 
influences  that  may  go  with  our  first  waves  of 
population,  and  if  its  people  and  natural  re 
sources  decline  assimilation  and  absorption  in 
national  interests,  social  and  civil  and  com 
mercial  chafings  must  inevitably  occur.  It  is 
quite  likely  to  be  the  old  Georgia  case  re 
peated,  unless  Indian  and  white  natures  are 
much  changed.  What  are  the  facts? 


78  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

The  Cherokee  "  nation,"  as  the  Cherokees 
greatly  prefer  to  be  called,  has  a  government 
of  its  own,  constituted  by  the  elective  fran 
chise,  and  consisting  of  the  legislative,  judicial, 
and  executive  branches,  and  it  has  exclusive 
jurisdiction  where  all  the  parties  are  citizens  of 
the  nation.  Mixed  cases  of  red  and  white  go 
to  a  white  arbitrator,  the  agent  of  the  general 
government  for  the  Indian  Territory,  or  to  the 
United  States  Supreme  Court,  at  Fort  Smith, 
Arkansas.  With  6000  whites  living  among 
the  Indians,  citizens  of  the  United  States,  but 
not  of  the  Territory  where  they  live,  it  is  not 
strange  that  the  arbitrator  is  overborne  with 
cases.1  "  The  letters  received  from  within  the 
limits  of  the  agency  asking  for  information, 
decision,  instruction,  or  advice,  average  from 
ten  to  fifteen  daily."  2 

The  disorder  from  intruding  whites  and  from 
intermeddling  ones  over  the  border  is  a  source 
of  regret  and  complaint  in  almost  every  report. 
"The  country  continues  to  afford  an  asylum 
for  refugees  from  justice  from  the  States,  and 


1  iln  the  quotations  immediately  following,  reference  is 
sometimes  made  to  the  whole  Indian  Territory,  and  some 
times  only  to  the  Cherokees.     The  text  and  context  will 
readily  locate  the  reference. 

2  "  Report  of  Commissioners  of  Indian  Affairs,"  1880; 
p.  94. 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  79 

to  invite  the  immigration  of  the  very  worst 
class  of  men  that  infest  an  Indian  border."  1 

"Lawlessness  and  violence  still  continue  in 
the  Indian  Territory.  The  two  or  three 
United  States  marshalls,  sent  to  enforce  the 
intercourse  laws  by  protecting  Indians  from 
white  thieves  and  buffalo  hunters,  have  been 
entirely  inadequate,"  etc. 2 

"They  are  willing  that  the  wild  Indians 
from  the  plains  shall  be  settled  on  their  un 
occupied  lands,  but  they  most  emphatically 
object  to  the  settlement  of  the  wild  white 
man  from  the  States  among  them."  "  The 
intruders,  as  a  class,  are  unfit  to  be  in  the 
Indian  country,  and  some  measures  should  be 
adopted  that  will  rid  these  people  of  their  pres 
ence."  "It  is  estimated  that  nine  tenths  of 
the  crimes  committed  in  the  Territory  are 
caused  by  whiskey,  and  its  many  aliases.  It 
is  introduced  from  the  adjoining  States,  where 
it  can  be  purchased  in  any  quantity."  "  The 
band  of  desperadoes,  whites  and  Indians,  who 
made  their  headquarters  in  the  western  part  of 
this  agency,  and  beyond,  and  who  were  the 
terror  of  the  whole  country  last  year,  have  all 
been  killed  off,  or  placed  in  the  penitentiary."  3 

"Such    administration    of    the    law    in    this 

1  " Report  for  1875,'*  p.  13.     2  "Report  for  1874,"  p.  11. 
8  "  Report  for  1880,"  pp.  94,  95. 


80 


country  as  is  possible  through  the  United 
States  district  courts  of  Arkansas,  scarcely 
deserves  the  name.  Practically,  therefore,  we 
have  a  country  embracing  62,253  square  miles, 
inhabited  by  more  than  75,000  souls,  including 
50,000  civilized  Indians,  without  the  protection 
of  law,  and  not  infrequently  the  scene  of  vio 
lence  and  wrong."  1  "  This  large  population 
becomes  more  and  more  helpless  under  the 
increasing  lawlessness  among  themselves,  and 
the  alarming  intrusion  of  outlawed  white  men." 

From  the  tenor  of  the  reports  it  would  seem 
that  the  civilization  of  the  Indians  has  not 
risen  to  even  a  second  rank  in  national  pur 
pose.  "  They  ought  not  to  be  left  the  prey  to 
the  worst  influences  which  can  be  brought  to 
them,  in  the  life  and  example  of  the  meanest 
white  men.  They  deserve  such  guardianship 
and  care,  on  the  part  of  the  United  States,  as 
will  secure  for  them  the  powerful  aid  to  eleva 
tion  which  comes  from  the  presence  of  law." 

What  is  said  of  low  whites  who  enter  the 
country  to  labor  for  the  Choctaws  and  Chicka- 
saws  has  like  bearing  on  the  tribe  whose  second 
experiment  we  are  tracing.  "These  whites, 
once  in  the  country,  are  seldom  known  to 
leave,  and  thus  their  numbers  are  rapidly  in 
creasing.  The  result  will  be  a  mixture  of  the 
1  "Report,  1874,"  pp.  11,12. 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  81 

lowest  white  blood  with  the  Indian,  thus  prop 
agating,  instead  of  curing,  the  indolence  and 
un thrift  with  which  they  are  already  cursed."  1 


SECTION  8.  —  Forebodings,  and  the  Doom  of  the 
Reservation  Theory. 

No  one,  of  course,  can  be  surprised  that  the 
Cherokees  are  haunted  and  paralyzed  with  the 
fear  of  another  removal.  If  they  were  in  the 
way  of  the  whites  when  in  their  old  home, 
much  more  may  they  suppose  they  now  are, 
and  if  old  treaties,  compacts,  and  promises, 
and  even  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court 
could  not  protect  them  in  their  homes  and 
rights  on  the  east  of  the  Mississippi,  why  may 
they  now  expect  it?  The  remark  of  the  agent 
cannot  be  unexpected :  "  Their  only  fear  is 
that  the  United  States  will  forget  her  obliga 
tions,  and  in  some  way  deprive  them  of  their 
lands.  They  do  not  seem  to  care  for  the  loss 
in  money  value,  so  much  as  they  fear  the 
trouble,  and  the  utter  annihilation  of  a  great 
portion  of  their  people,  if  the  whites  are  per 
mitted  to  homestead  in  all  portions  of  their 
country,  as  is  contemplated  by  so  many  of  the 
measures  before  Congress."  2 
1  "  Report  for  1874,"  p.  71.  2  "  Report  for  1880,"  p.  94. 


82  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

"  They  feel  the  pressure  of  the  white  man 
on  every  side,  and,  among  the  full-bloods 
especially,  there  is  a  growing  apprehension 
that,  before  long,  the  barriers  will  give  way, 
their  country  be  overrun,  and  themselves  dis 
possessed."  \ 

They  may  well  have  this  apprehension,  when 
the  Indian  Commissioner  makes  a  point  to 
show,  and  with  much  practical  sense  and  force, 
that  their  separateness  cannot  long  continue, 
and  that  "  no  Indian  country  can  exist  perpet 
ually  within  the  boundaries  of  this  republic 
without  becoming,  in  all  essential  particulars,  a 
part  of  the  United  States."  Many  of  those 
fears  would  be  abated  if  the  Cherokees  could 
feel  assured,  not  only  that  their  land  titles  to 
single  farms  would  be  made  as  safe  in  title  as  a 
white  man's,  but  that  such  white  men  would 
become  their  neighbors  as  would  make  those 
titles  worth  keeping,  and  be  themselves  such 
men  as  Indians  could  endure.  Cherokee  expe 
rience  had  been  the  reverse  of  this. 

A  very  liberal  use  of  official  statement  has 
now  been  made,  that  a  fair  view  of  the  pres 
ent  condition  of  the  Cherokees  might  be  had. 
As  government  and  paid  agents  are  reporting 
their  own  work,  we  m::y  presume  that  the 
view  given 'by  them  is  as  favorable  as  the  facts 
1  "  Report  for  1875,"  p.  13. 


OF  THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  83 

will  warrant.  The  state  of  the  case  is  too  pain 
fully  similar  to  the  Georgia  experiment  to  be 
satisfactory  as  a  result  or  hopeful  in  its  outlook. 
Surrounded  b}^  States,  and  pressed  by  the  ris 
ing  tide  of  immigration  ;  infested  and  raided 
by  miserable  or  unscrupulous  whites  ;  railroads 
clamorous  for  right  of  way,  and  our  multitud 
inous  white  interests  and  energies  standing  on 
tip-toe  to  go  in,  pioneered  by  insatiable  land- 
speculators,  this  second  experiment  with  our 
leading  tribe  under  the  "  reservation  theory " 
seems  to  be  nearly  ended.  What  is  obvious  to 
us  is  almost  experience  to  them,  so  fully  is 
it  in  their  fears  and  expectations. 

The  official  reports  of  both  civil  and  benevo 
lent  work  performed  by  the  government  and  by 
religious  bodies  in  the  Indian  Territory  make 
one  more  satisfied  and  hopeful  than  a  visit  and 
personal  observations.  Our  longest  and  most 
expensive  experiment  on  the  reservation  theory, 
under  the  joint  endeavors  of  statesmen  and 
philanthropists,  seems  to  have  culminated  in 
lifting  the  Indian  to  the  saddle  as  a  first-class 
stock-raiser.  Together  with  this  elevation  he 
has  obtained  many  of  the  best  qualities  of  the 
citizen  and  Christian,  while  he  is  yet  restrained 
by  circumstances  unfavorable  to  their  develop 
ment  and  practice.  In  1880  we  heard  three 
eminent  Indians  address  2000  of  their  people 


84  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

at  their  National  Indian  Fair  at  Muskogee. 
One  was  an  ex-chief  of  the  Cherokees,  one  was 
of  the  Supreme  Bench  of  that  nation,  and  the 
other  a  graduate  of  a  New  England  college, 
and  an  eminent  lawyer  for  some  time  in  one  of 
the  western  States.  Their  interests  arid  pros 
pects  were  freely  and  ably  discussed  on  the 
stand.  Farming  was  not  a  popular  idea  with 
the  speakers  or  the  audience,  though  the  Cher 
okees  then  had  about  90,000  acres  in  rough 
agriculture.  They  declined  the  ownership  of 
land  in  severalty  and  private  farms  in  fee- 
simple,  in  memory  of  their  experience  on  the 
east  of  the  Mississippi,  where  they  were  called, 
with  some  propriety,  "  a  nation  of  farmers." 
They  were  not  disposed  to  prepare  more  farms 
for  a  second  lottery.  Hence  their  agricultural 
show  at  the  Fair  was  meagre  in  the  extreme, 
and  their  mechanical  show  was  more  so.  This 
was  sixty  years  after  the  government  of  the 
United  States  had  presented  to  them,  through 
General  Jackson,  two  ploughs,  six  hoes,  and 
six  axes,  and  had  promised  a  loom,  six  spinning- 
wheels,  and  as  many  pair  of  hand  cards,  and 
the  American  Board  had  commenced  Christian 
izing  work  among  them. 

Of  course  they  were  bl laded  by  their  painful 
memories  of  hard  endeavors,  discouragements, 
and  failures  to  obtain  the  white  man's  civiliza-. 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  85 

lion;    they   had  no  confidence    in  government^ 
mdorsements^   and  .solemn    treaties,    when    a 

white  man's  interests  should  overtake  them. 
Yet__lhere_\vas  evidently  a  despairing  and 
growing  acquiescence  in  the  new  policy  of- 
fe£e-i_-afL  land  in  severally,  citizenship,  and 
the  dissolution  of  the  "  nation."  These  par 
ties  were  so  evenly  balanced  and  so  warm 
on  the  new  policy  as  to  make  its  discussion 
perilous.  Good  sense,  indifference,  and  de 
spair  have  since  given  it  a  quiet  majority. 

Evidently  theJDawes  Bill,  the  soul  of  which 
is  the  new  policy,  opens  up  to  the  brightest  out 
look  into  their  ominous  future.  Others,  how 
ever,  must  do  their  hoping  in  it,  jind  its  success 
or  failure  will  depend  very  much  on  the  Indian's 
white  neighbor. 


86  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 


CHAPTER   III. 

INDIAN   FARMING. 

SECTION  1.  —  Some  Very  Singular  Assumptions. 

Indian  farming  has  lately  been  put  forward 
as  a  leading  remedy  for  .Indian  troubles.  It 
has  been  spoken  of  as  if  it  were  an  industry 
unknown  to  the  Indians,  and  might  be  made 
to  work  as  a  newly  discovered  expedient,  to 
relieve  both  races,  on  this  vexed  question. 
The  fact  is  overlooked  that  farming  b}T  the 
aborigines  of  America  is  as  ancient  as  the 
Mound-Builders,  that  is,  older  than  histoiy, 
and  that  the  leading  grain  now  is  Indian  corn. 
Our  newly  discovered  farming  theory,  for  the  ills 
of  the  poor  aborigines,  goes  on  the  assumption 
that  the  Indians  were  never  acquainted  with 
this  industry,  have  not  practised  it,  and,  so  far 
as  they  can  be  made  to  understand  it,  are  now 
averse  to  it.  But  what  is  the  fact? 

Agriculture  has  been  a  leading  industry  in 
North  America  from  pre-histwic  times.  Among 
the  Aztec  ruins  of  New  Mexico  and  Arizona,  and 
in  the  extant  pueblos,  are  abundant  evidences 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  87 

of  primitive  and  rudimental  farming.  "  At  the 
period  of  European  discovery,  maize  was  found 
cultivated  and  a  staple  article  of  food  in  a  large 
part  of  North  America  and  in  parts  of  South 
America.  There  were  also  found  beans, 
squashes,  and  tobacco,  with  the  addition,  in 
some  areas,  of  peppers,  tomatoes,  cocoa,  and 
cotton."  Through  the  greater  part  of  the  San 
Juan  region,  New  Mexico,  there  is  "  evidence 
of  Indian  occupation  and  cultivation,"  in  its 
ancient  prime.  The  writer  brought  up  from 
that  country  very  handsome  specimens  of  corn 
from  fields  that  bore  the  same  before  the  Span 
iards  arrived  there  under  De  Vaca  about  1536. 
The  Mound-Builders  have  left  good  evidence 
that  they  were  agricultural  tribes.  Before  the 
Spaniards  gave  Christianity  to  the  pueblo  of 
Taos,  its  inhabitants  had  their  fast  days,  ap 
pointed  by  authority,  much  after  the  New  Eng 
land  style,  "for  offering  prayers  to  the  Sun  to 
supplicate  him  to  repeat  his  diurnal  visits,  and 
to  continue  to  make  the  maize,  beans,  and 
squashes  grow,  for  the  sustenance  of  the 
people."  The  Mandans  of  the  upper  Missouri 
had  their  high  scaffolds  for  drying  corn  and 
vegetables.  Beyond  Bismarck,  where  the  Nor 
thern  Pacific  Railroad  crosses  the  Missouri, 
the  Indians  have  raised  corn  from  ancient 
time.  "  That  the  culture  of  this  grain  has 


88 


been  carried  on  by  the  aborigines  from  a  very 
remote  period,  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  nume 
rous  fossilized  and  many  charred  corn-cobs,  in 
a  perfect  state  of  preservation,  are  still  found 
in  the  excavated  bluffs  along  the  river  and 
very  deep  down  in  the  oldest  mounds."1  Sir 
Richard  Grenville,  visiting  the  Indian  towns 
in  Virginia  before  the  days  of  Jamestown,  1585, 
says :  "  Their  corn  they  plant  in  rows,  for  it 
grows  so  large,  with  thick  stalk  and  broad 
leaves,  that  one  plant  would  stint  the  other, 
and  it  would  never  arrive  at  maturity.  In  the 
fields  they  erect  a  stage  in  which  a  sentry  is 
stationed  to  guard  against  the  depredations  of 
birds  and  thieves."  When  Bankers  and  Sluy- 
ter  visited  the  Long  Island  Indians  in  1679-80, 
they  gave  them  corn-bread,  the  grain  being 
unripe,  coarsely  broken,  and  half-baked  —  the 
prototype  of  colonial  samp.  ,When  Green- 
balgh  visited  an  Iroquois  settlement  at  the 
outlet  of  Honeoye  Lake,  N.  Y.,  in  1677,  he 
says  :  "  They  have  a  good  store  of  corn  grow 
ing  to  the  northward  of  the  town." 

This  town  was  situated  at  Mendon,  near 
Rochester,  and  the  old  author  says  :  "  It  con 
tains  about  120  houses,  being  the  largest  of  all 
the  houses  we  saw,  the  ordimiry  being  fifty  or 

1  "  Northern  Pacific  Railroad  Guide,"  by  Henry  I.  Winser, 
1883  ;  p.  118. 


OF   THE   INDIAN  QUESTION.  89 

sixty  feet  long,  with  twelve  and  thirteen  fires 
in  one  house.  .  .  .  From  the  roof-poles  were 
suspended  their  strings  of  corn  in  the  ear, 
braided  by  the  husks,  also  strings  of  dried 
squashes  and  pumpkins.  Spaces  were  con 
trived  here  and  there  to  store  away  their  ac 
cumulations  of  provisions."  l 

SECTION  2.  —  Early  Indian  Farming  in  New 
England,  New  York,  Missouri,  New  Mexico, 
G-eorgia ,  Minnesota,  Dakota,  Canada,  Mich 
igan,  Iowa,  and  Florida. 

The  agricultural  habits  of  the  New  England 
Indians  when  white  men  first  came  among 
them  is  well  shown  by  Roger  Williams,  in  his 
"  Key  to  the  Language  of  America,"  written  in 
1643.  He  speaks  of  their  "  parch'd  meal,  which 
is  a  readie  very  wholesome  food,  which  they 
eat  with  a  little  water  hot  or  cold.  I  have 
travelled  with  neere  200  of  them  at  once,  neere 
100  miles  through  the  woods,  every  man  carry 
ing  a  little  Basket  of  this  at  his  back,  and 
sometimes  in  a  hollow  Leather  Girdle  about  his 
middle,  sufficient  for  a  man  for  three  or  four 

1  "  Houses  and  House  Life  of  the  American  Aborigines." 
By  Lewis  II.  Morgan.  Vol.  iv.  of  Contributions  to  No. 
Am.  Ethnology,  U.  8.  Department  of  the  Interior,  pp.  116, 
120,  123,  129,  151,  192-3. 


90  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

dales."  "  The  corne  of  the  Countrey,  with 
which  they  are  fed  from  the  wombe."  "  Their 
Women  constantly  beat  all  their  corne  with 
hand ;  they  plant  it,  dresse  it,  gather  it,  barne 
it,  beat  it,  and  take  as  much  paines  as  any 
people  in  the  world."  "  Against  the  Birds,  the 
Indians  are  very  carefull.  .  .  .  They  put  up 
little  watch-houses  in  the  middle  of  their  fields, 
in  which  they,  or  their  biggest  children,  lodge, 
and  early  in  the  morning  prevent  the  birds," 
etc.  Speaking  of  strawberries  he  says:  "The 
Indians  bruise  them  in  a  Morter,  and  mixe 
them  with  meale  and  make  strawberry  bread." 
"  There  be  diverse  sorts  of  this  Corne  and  of  the 
colours."  "Where  a  field  is  to  be  broken,  they 
have  a  very  loving,  sociable,  speedy  way  to 
dispatch  it.  All  the  neighbours,  men  and 
Women,  forty,  fifty,  a  hundred,  &c.,  joyne, 
and  come  in  to  helpe  freely."  "  The  Women 
of  the  Family  will  commonly  raise  two  or  three 
heaps  of  twelve,  fifteene,  or  twenty  bushells  a 
heap,  which  they  drie  in  broad,  round  heaps."  l 

An  early  author  thus  speaks  of  the  new  vil 
lage  of  Onondaga,  New  York.  The  old  one  was 
burned  by  the  occupants  when  they  fled  before 
Count  Frontenac,  in  1696.  "  The  town  in  its 
present  state  is  about  two  or  tl^ee  miles  long, 

1  "  Coll.  of  the  R.  I.  His.  Soc.,"  vol.  i.  pp.  33,  50,  59,  85, 
90,  91,  92,  93. 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  91 

yet  the  scattered  cabins  on  both  sides  of  the 
water  are  not  above  forty  in  number  ;  many  of 
them  hold  two  families,  but  all  stand  single,  so 
that  the  whole  town  is  a  strange  mixture  of 
cabins,  interspersed  with  great  patches  of  high 
grass,  bushes,  and  shrubs,  some  of  peas,  corn, 
and  squashes."  l 

The  following  evidence  of  Indian  agriculture 
in  the  Ohio  comes  in  sad  form,  but  we  give 
it :  "  About  the  middle  of  October,  General 
Harmar  moved  on  the  Indian  towns  on  the 
Miami.  The  Indians  had  fled,  and  he  ordered 
the  towns  to  be  burnt,  the  fruit  trees,  of  which 
there  was  a  large  number,  to  be  girdled,  and 
every  description  of  property,  including  at  least 
20,000  bushels  of  corn,  to  be  destroyed."  2 

The  Mandans  on  the  upper  Missouri  were 
once  renowned  in  frontier  Indian  history. 
They  built  timber-framed  houses.  The  timber 
for  these  was  in  the  low  bottom-lands,  and  at 
quite  a  distance  often ;  yet  they  cut  and  framed 
it  without  metal  tools,  and  moved  it  without 
animal  hauling.  Between  the  lodges  were 
their  drying  scaffolds,  one  for  each  lodge. 
Each  scaffold  was  about  twenty  feet  long, 

1  "Travels  to  Onondaga,"  London  Ed.,  1751;  pp.  49,  50. 
Quoted  by  Morgan,  as  above,  p.  123. 

>'  Judge  Biirnet's  "Xotes  on  the  Early  Settlement  of  the 
North-west  Territory,"  p.  103. 


92  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

twelve  feet  wide,  and  seven  feet  high,  up  to  the 
flooring.  Here  they  placed  for  drying  their 
corn,  meat,  vegetables,  and  skins. "  1 

In  his  notes  on  New  Mexico,  General  Emory 
says  that  "  the  Maricopas  occupy  thatched  cot 
tages,  thirty  or  forty  feet  in  diameter,  made 
of  twigs  of  cotton-wood  trees  interwoven  with 
straw  of  wheat,  cornstalks  and  cane." 

"  The  Mahas  seem  very  friendly  to  the  whites, 
and  cultivate  corn,  beans,  melons,  squashes,  and 
a  small  species  of  tobacco."  2 

Major  Amos  Stoddard  was  our  first  governor 
of  the  Upper  Louisiana,  taking  charge  when 
the  Territory  was  transferred  to  the  United 
States.  Speaking  of  one  Delaware  and  two 
Shawnee  villages  in  the  present  Missouri,  in 
1794,  he  says :  "  The  houses  of  all  the  villages 
are  built  of  logs,  some  of  them  squared  and 
well  interlocked  at  the  ends,  and  covered  with 
shingles.  Many  of  them  are  two  stories  high, 
and  attached  to  them  are  small  houses  for  the 
preservation  of  corn,  and  barns  for  the  shelter 
of  cattle  and  horses,  with  which  they  are  well 
supplied.  Their  houses  are  well  furnished  with 
decent  and  useful  furniture."  3  Poor  remnants 


1  Morgan,  ut  supra,  pp.  125-129. 

2  Bradbury's  "Travels  in  the  Interior  of  North  America/' 
1809-11;  p.  69. 

3  Stoddard' s  "  Sketches  of  Louisiana/'  p.  215. 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  93 

of  these  two  tribes  are  now  found  in  the  Ind 
ian  Territory. 

The  treaty  of  Greenville  was  hastened  by  the 
great  victory  which  General  Wayne  gained  over 
the  Indians,  in  August,  1794.  In  moving  irre 
sistibly  on  to  that  triumph  —  General  Wayne 
had  gained  from  the  Indians  the  name  of  Big 
Wind,  or  Cyclone,  by  the  force  and  speed  of 
his  marching  —  he  swept  through  the  heart  of 
Indian  civilization  in  the  primitive  Ohio.  "  The 
extensive  and  highly  cultivated  fields  and  gar. 
dens,  which  appeared  on  every  side,  exhibited 
the  work  of  many  hands.  The  margins  of  the 
beautiful  rivers  Au  Glaice  and  Miami  had  the 
appearance  of  a  continued  village,  for  several 
miles  above  and  below  their  junction.  They 
were  covered  with  extensive  cornfields,  and 
gardens  containing  a  great  variety  of  vegeta 
ble  productions."  1 

In  Judd's  "  History  of  Hadley,  Mass.,"  the 
estimate  of  Indian  cornfields  between  Mount 
Tom  and  Sugar  Loaf,  on  both  sides  of  the 
Connecticut,  falls  somewhat  within  seventy 
acres,  and,  in  the  Pynchon  purchase,  one  field 
of  about  sixteen  acres,  in  Hadley,  was  reserved 
by  the  natives.  A  part  of  the  payment  was 
the  ploughing  of  this  amount,  and  probably 
this  field. 

1  Bui-net's  "  Notes  on  the  Early  Settlement  of  the  North 
west  Territory,"  p,  169. 


94  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

In  the  winter  of  1623,  the  Pilgrims,  hard 
pressed  for  food,  made  a  tour  among  the  Ind 
ians  for  corn,  and  having  purchased  more  than 
they  could  take  back  to  Plymouth,  Standish 
was  sent  for  it  the  next  month,  and  "  also  to 
purchase  more  at  the  same  place."  Drake  says 
that  "  The  Muskogees  (Creeks)  had  an  excel 
lent  regulation ;  namely,  the  men  assisted  the 
women  in  the  planting  before  setting  out  on 
their  warlike  and  other  expeditions."  l 

The  same  author  speaks  of  beautiful  corn 
fields  along  the  Oakmulge,  to  the  extent  of 
twenty  miles.  Even  at  the  Gaspe,  far  north, 
Cartier  found  the  farm  products,  in  1534  and 
following.  When  he  moored  near  Montreal,  a 
thousand  Indians  welcomed  him,  and  threw 
fish  and  corn-bread  into  his  boats.  In  the 
approach  to  the  city  the  next  day,  "  we  began 
to  finde  goodly  and  large  cultivated  fieldes, 
full  of  such  corne  as  the  countrie  yeeldeth 
.  .  .  wherewith  they  live  even  as  we  doe  with 
our  wheat.  .  .  .  They  have  also  on  the  top  of 
their  houses  certain  granaries,  wherein  they 
keepe  their  corne  to  make  their  bread  withall. 
.  .  .  They  make  also  sundry  sorts  of  pottage 
with  the  said  corne,  and  also  of  peas  and  beans, 
whereof  they  have  great  st..xre,  as  also  with 
other  fruits,  great  cowcumbers  and  other  fruits. 
1  Drake's  "  Indians,"  bk.  iv. 


OF   THE    INDIAN   QUESTION.  95 

.  .  .  These  people  are  given  to  no  other  exer 
cise,  but  onely  to  husbandrie  and  fishing  for 
their  sustenance."  l 

"  The  Iroquois  have  always  been  an  agricul 
tural  people.  Their  extensive  plantations  of 
maize,  beans,  and  pumpkins  excited  the  admi 
ration  of  the  first  explorers.  Since  their  re 
moval  to  Canada,  their  industry  and  aptitude 
as  farmers  have  been  notable.  The  wheat  mar 
ket  of  Brantford  has,  for  many  years,  been 
largely  supplied  from  the  Reserve  "  —  the 
Grand  River  Reserve,  in  the  Province  of  On 
tario.2 

In  1809,  Colonel  Visger,  government  agent 
for  the  Indians  in  the  vicinity  of  Detroit,  re 
ported  that  the  Wyandottes  "  had  planted  160 
acres  of  corn,  and  two  individuals  had  sown 
12  acres  of  wheat ;  that  farming  utensils  were 
in  great  demand,  and  that  successful  experi 
ments  in  agriculture  had  been  made  in  six 
villages  of  Indians  within  forty  miles  of  De 
troit."  In  1884,  the  Wyandottes  had  been  re 
moved  to  the  Indian  Territory,  and  numbered 
284,  and  were  occupying  40  dwelling-houses. 

Under  date  of  February  16,  1806,  Lieutenant 
Pike  makes  this  entry  in  his  narrative :  "  The 
Sauks  and  Reynards  are  planting  corn  and 

1  Car-tier's  "  Narrative,"  1534  et  seq.,  Hakluyt's  Trans. 

2  "Mag.  of  Am.  His.,"   1885;  p.  120. 


96  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

raising  cattle."  1  In  1819  the  I/Abre  Indians 
"  sent  to  the  Mackinaw  market  more  than  1000 
bushels  of  corn,  for  which  they  received  payment 
in  money  or  goods.  In  some  years  they  have 
sent  more  than  3000  bushels.  They  use  the 
hoe  only,  in  cultivating  their  lands,  having  no 
ploughs,  oxen,  cows,  nor,  but  in  a  single 
instance,  horses."  "  On  Menominee  River  is 
the  only  permanent  village  possessed  by  the 
Menominees,  where  corn,  potatoes,  pumpkins, 
squashes,  etc.,  are  raised."  Then  they  numbered 
3900  ;  now  1450.  "  The  Winnebagoes  will  suf 
fer  no  encroachment  (1820)  upon  their  soil, 
nor  any  persons  to  pass  through  it  without 
giving  a  satisfactory  explanation  of  their  mo 
tives  and  intentions.  In  failing  to  comply 
with  this  peremptory  style,  their  lives  would 
be  in  danger.  They  cultivate  corn,  potatoes, 
pumpkins,  squashes  and  beans,  and  are  remark 
ably  provident.  They  possess  no  horses." 
Their  number  then  was  5800 ;  now  2144. 
"  The  whole  of  Fox  River  was  owned  and 
occupied  by  the  Sauks  and  Foxes  more  than 
a  century  since.  Many  traces  of  fields  culti 
vated  by  them  are  still  visible."  This  was 
also  in  1820.  They  then  numbered  6500 ; 
now  they  are  broken  up  into  iive  locations, 

1  Pik<>'s  "Expeditions  to  the  Sources  of  the  Mississippi," 
etc.,  Appendix,  vol.  i.  p.  19. 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  97 

and  number  924  souls.  The  principal  Fox  vil 
lage  was  where  Davenport  now  stands,  oppo 
site  Rock  Island,  and  where  they  had  about 
300  acres  under  cultivation,  and  raised  from 
7000  to  8000  bushels  of  corn,  besides  other 
cereals  and  vegetables.  Fort  Armstrong  was 
on  the  island,  and  traders  were  among  them, 
where  they  found  an  annual  market  for  about 
1000  bushels  of  corn,  1000  pounds  of  beeswax, 
3000  pounds  of  feathers,  and  about  275,000 
pounds  of  deer  tallow.  The  winter  hunt  for 
1819-20  of  the  two  tribes,  including  peltries 
delivered  at  Fort  Edwards,  was  valued  at 
858,800.  And  this  primitive  agriculture  ex 
tended  from  the  Hochelaga  of  the  Indians,  the 
Mount  Roiall  of  Cartier,  Montreal,  to  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico.  "The  Towacano,  or  Pauls  nation 
(near  the  Gulf),  live  in  villages,  cultivate  the 
soil,  and  pursue  the  chase."  l 

Captain  John  H.  Bell,  agent  for  the  Florida 
Indians,  reported  in  1820 :  "  The  pure  Semi- 
nole  Indians  live  in  houses  of  wood,  constructed 
like  those  of  white  people.  .  .  .  They  raise 
corn  with  the  hoe,  having  no  ploughs  in  the 
country.  .  .  .  These  Indians  have  negro  slaves, 
who  live  in  separate  families.  They  raise  corn 

1  "Report  of  Jedidiah  Morse,  D.D.,  to  John  C.  Calhoun, 
Sec.  of  War,"  1820.  Appendix,  pp.  17,  24,  47,  48,  51,  152-7, 
259,  300-10. 


98 


for  their  subsistence ;  if  they  have  a  surplus,  it 
goes  to  the  families  of  their  masters.  .  .  .  One 
Indian,  called  Friday,  who  is  an  industrious 
man,  cultivates  and  fences  his  lands,  splits 
rails,  etc.,  but  is  laughed  at  and  discarded  by 
his  neighbors,  because  he  '  works  like  a  negro.' 
When  they  see  this  man  at  work,  they  ex 
claim  :  '  Are  we  reduced  to  this  degraded 
state  ? '  They  are  unwilling  to  leave  their 
country." 

It  would,  of  course,  be  unreasonable  to  call 
the  aborigines  of  this  country  an  agricultural 
people  in  the  ordinary  sense,  and  equally  so  to 
deny  that  they  had  the  primitive  elements  of 
agriculture,  propensities  to  it,  and  many  habits 
and  practices  of  it.  That  bas-relief  panel  in 
the  Capitol  at  Washington,  of  the  Landing  of 
the  Pilgrims,  where  an  Indian  offers  them  an 
ear  of  corn,  is  an  emblem  true  to  history.  The 
symbol  properly  associates  the  Indian  with 
Indian  corn,  declarative  of  the  general  fact 
that  before  the  white  man  came,  America  was 
a  cornfield,  and  the  red  man  worked  it.  When 
Red  Jacket  was  on  a  visit  to  his  Great  Father, 
and  they  showed  him  this  panel  picture,  he 
must  have  felt  the  truth  it  set  forth  to  his  eye, 
and  it  would  not  be  strange  Jf  the  old  chief  had 
some  painful  reflections  over  the  way  in  which 
the  white  strangers  have  responded  to  that 
generous  welcome. 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  99 

In  speaking  of  the  North  American  Indians 
as  a  whole,  Bancroft  says :  "  All  the  tribes 
south  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  except  remote  ones 
on  the  north-east  and  the  north-west,  cultivated 
the  earth.  Unlike  the  people  of  the  Old  World, 
they  were  at  once  hunters  and  tillers  of  the 
ground."  l 

In  this  resume  of  Indian  agriculture,  a  few 
items  should  be  considered  in  connection  with 
the  scheme  to  turn  the  Indians  from  the  chase 
to  the  farm.  The  early  explorers  and  settlers 
found  them  tilling  the  ground  to  this  extent, 
and  resuming  it  will  be  no  novelty.  The  prod 
ucts  of  their  cultivation  extended  to  a  variety 
of  articles,  and  they  were  careful  in  their  means 
of  preservation.  Some  had  timber-framed 
houses,  like  those  of  white  people,  though 
they  were  destitute  of  tools  of  metal  or  ani 
mals  for  hauling.  They  dared  cultivation  in 
the  far  north,  where  now  the  whites  are  much 
discouraged  in  the  same  work.  Car  tier  repre 
sents  them  as  confining  themselves  to  hus 
bandry  and  fishing  for  a  living.  In  some  cases 
they  cultivated  for  the  white  market,  though 
confined  to  the  hoe  only,  and  their  crops  went 
up  to  thousands  of  bushels.  Some  pushed 
farming  enterprise  to  such  an  extent  as  to 
own  and  employ  slaves  as  plantation  hands. 
1  ''His.  U.  S.,"  vol.  iii.  p.  271. 


100  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

This  should  be  regarded  as  ultimate  evidence 
of  the  Indian's  capacity  and  willingness  to  be  a 
farmer.  If  the  ardor  has  died  out  and  the  pur 
suit  ceased,  which  Bancroft  represents  as  gen 
eral  south  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  we  may  be 
able  to  find  the  causes.  We  may  work,  there 
fore,  in  the  hope  of  removing  the  causes  and  of 
restoring  the  pursuit.  Happy  indeed  if  we 
could  also  reinstate  the  honor  and  honesty 
which  Bradbury  ascribed  to  them :  "  I  never 
heard  of  a  single  instance  of  a  white  man 
being  robbed,  or  having  anything  stolen  from 
him,  in  an  Indian  village."  * 

With  this  agrees  an  interesting  incident, 
which  Bradbury  details  on  page  190  of  his 
narrative.  One  Richardson  came  down  the 
Missouri  with  him,  and  seemed  to  anticipate 
life  again  within  civilization.  When  Bradbury 
was  sick  in  St.  Louis,  Richardson  called  on 
him,  and  among  other  things  said:  "I  find  so 
much  deceit  and  selfishness  among  white  men 
that  I  am  already  tired  of  them.  The  arrow 
head,  which  is  not  yet  extracted,  pains  me 
when  I  chop  wood.  Whiskey  I  cannot  drink, 
and  bread  and  salt  I  do  not  care  about.  I  will 
go  again  amongst  the  Indians." 

1  "  Travels  of  John  Bradbury  in  the  Interior  of  North 
America,"  1809-11;  p.  167. 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  101 


SECTION  3.  —  The  best  Indian  Farms  the  far 
thest  from  White  Neighborhood. 

It  is  to  be  noticed  that  these  Indian  fields 
now  named  were  far  in  advance  and  at  wide 
remove  from  the  white  settlements,  and  that 
they  have  disappeared  with  the  approach  of 
the  immigrants.  So  Bancroft  recognizes  farm 
ing  among  the  Pokanokets  of  King  Philip, 
before  the  intrusion  of  the  whites.  Then,  "  as 
the  English  villagers  drew  nearer  and  nearer  to 
them  .  .  .  their  best  fields  for  planting  corn 
were  gradually  alienated  "  ;  "  repeated  sales  of 
land  had  narrowed  their  domains  .  .  .  and  as 
wave  after  wave  succeeded  they  found  them 
selves  deprived  of  their  broad  acres."  l 

The  Merrimac,  Connecticut,  and  Hudson 
valleys  saw,  from  time  to  time,  the  Indian 
fields  staked  off  into  white  men's  farms,  while 
the  original  owners  moved  on.  When  Lieu 
tenant  Pike  was  exploring  the  upper  Missis 
sippi,  in  1806,  he  found  fine  cornfields,  where 
are  now  magnificent  wheat  fields.  He  obtained 
a  grant  of  100,000  acres,  including  the  Falls  of 
St.  Anthony,  for  two  hundred  dollars'  worth  of 
presents  and  sixty  gallons  of  spirits,  and  in 
his  Report  to  the  War  Office,  he  says,  with 

i  "His.  U.  S."  ii.  99. 


102  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

charming  simplicity,  "  You  will  perceive  that 
we  have  obtained  about  100,000  acres,  equal  to 
$200,000,  for  a  song."1 

Very  true,  St.  Anthony  and  St.  Paul  and 
Minneapolis  look  better  and  are  better  than 
Indian  cornfields.  Still,  it  is  well  enough 
to  notice  why  the  Indians  gave  up  farming 
there.  The  regions  around  Detroit  and  Mack 
inaw  have  become  fruitful  and  most  beautiful 
in  the  farms  and  towns  and  cities  of  white 
men,  but  we  are  false  to  history  if  we  trace 
the  changes  only  to  Indian  indolence  and  un- 
thrift. 

From  colonial  times  hitherto  we  have  had 
the  national  theory  of  Indian  reservations  with 
some  agricultural  hope,  and  at  the  same  time 
the  national  practice  of  breaking  them  up. 
The  en crpachment  of  Jhe.  ^whites  mx._ JJie__Jiicl- .. 
ians,  and  the  appropriation  of  their  lands,  by 
treaty,  purchase,  exchange,  or  force,  has  quite 
destroyed  their  even  poor  practice  of  farming, 
and  any  ambition  for  it.  Their  constant  re 
movals  from  old  homes  to  a  farther  front  have 
made  them  hopeless  and  heartless.  No  white 
race,  certainly  not  Americans,  would  Jollow.aip. 
farming  in  such  circumstances. 

It  is  pleasant  to  enter  one  Exception  to  the 

1  "Pike's  Expedition,"  Appendix,  pt.  i.  p.  10,  Supple 
ment,  p.  25. 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  103 

general  rule  that  the  whites  encroach  on  the 
cultivated  grounds  of  the  Indians  and  expel 
them.  The  question  was  put  to  one,  long 
and  widely  familiar  with  Indian  life  in  the  far 
West,  and  he  made  this  reply  to  me,  on  the 
willingness  and  aptness  of  the  Indian  to  culti 
vate  the  land  :  — 

"  From  the  Shoshones  here  in  Wyoming  and 
west,  they  take  kindly  to  it,  and  are  anxious 
to  learn.  Sagwitche,  a  Ute,  left  his  tribe,  went 
to  farming  with  fifty  others,  and  lie  raised 
1300  bushels  of  small  grains.  This  was  in 
Thistle  Valley,  Utah.  The  white  settlers  re 
tired  from  the  Indians,  and  a  contribution  paid 
them  off  for  the  improvements  which  they 
left." 

And  to  another  related  question  the  same 
gentleman  made  this  reply :  "  The  whites,  bor 
dering,  lack  the  civilization  to  get  along  well 
with  the  Indians.  The  kinder  the  whites  are, 
the  kinder  the  Indians."  It  may  not 'be  im 
proper  to  add  that  if  the  Indians  had  published 
as  many  papers  as  the  whites,  in  their  propor 
tion,  we  of  the  East  would  now  have  quite 
different  opinions  of  the  Indians  and  of  their 
white  neighbors. 


104 


SECTION  4.  — The  Encroachments  of  Immigrants 
and  the  Violations  of  Treaties,  as  related  to 
Indian  Farming. 

As  to  the  keeping  and  breaking  of  Indian 
treaties,  Senator  Dawes  is  reported  as  making 
this  strong  statement  in  a  senatorial  debate,  in 
April,  1880  :  "  Government  has  never  kept  its 
promises  to  the  Indians,  and  there  are  no  indi 
cations  that  it  ever  will." 

Some  time  since,  Indian  Inspector  Pollock 
gave  this  testimony  before  a  committee  of  the 
Senate  :  — 

The  Indians  have  "almost  uniformly  ob 
served  treaty  obligations,  when  they  under 
stood  them,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  to  the 
best  of  his  knowledge  and  belief,  scarcely  one 
of  over  360  entered  into  with  the  Indians  by 
the  government  had  ever  been  fulfilled  in  ac 
cordance  with  its  terms,  and  many  of  them 
had  been  grossly  violated." 

The  Indian  Commissioner  for  1872  gen 
eralizes  the  reasons  for  breaking  old  treaties, 
and  granting  new  reservations,  in  this  man 
ner:  — 

u  These  treaties  were  made  from  time  to 
time,  as  the  pressure  of  white  settlements  or 
the  fear  or  the  experience  ot  Indian  hostilities 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  105 

made  the  demand  for  the  removal  of  one 
tribe  after  another  urgent  or  imperative." 

Mr.  Walker,  quoted  above,  says  of  the  causes 
for  making  new  reservations:  "There  is  scarcely 
one  of  the  92  reservations  at  present  estab 
lished  (1874)  on  which  white  men  have  not 
effected  a  lodgement ;  many  swarm  with  squat 
ters,  who  hold  their  place  by  intimidating 
the  rightful  owners ;  while  in  more  than  one 
case  the  Indians  have  been  wholly  dispossessed, 
and  are  wanderers  upon  the  face  of  the 
earth."2 

Arid  to  see  what  our  government  treaties 
and^  reservations  amount  to,  and  how  we 
discourage  the  Indians  in  any  tendencies  to 
agriculture,  settlements,  and  civilization,  let  a 
few  cases  be  cited :  — 

"  The  progress  of  the  Indians  in  Michigan  in 
civilization  and  industry  has  been  greatly  hin 
dered  in  the  past  by  a  feeling  of  uncertainty 
in  regard  to  their  permanent  possession  and 
enjoyment  of  their  homes."  3 

Of  the  Mille  Lac  Chippewas,  he  says : 
*'  Their  present  reservation  is  rich  in  fine 
lands,  the  envy  of  lumber  dealers,  and  there 


"  Report  on  Indian  Affairs,"  1873,  pp.  83-4. 

2  "The  Indian  Question,"  by  Francis  A.  Walker.  1874; 
p.  70. 

3  Ibid.,  ind.  Ques.,  154. 


106 


is  a  strong  pressure  on  all  sides  for  their 
early  removal."  1 

In  the  Minnesota  and  Sioux  War  of  1862, 
the  Winnebagoes  remained  friendly  to  the 
whites,  yet,  says  Mr.  Walker,  "  the  people 
were  so  determined  that  all  Indians  should 
be  removed  beyond  the  limits  of  the  State 
that  Congress,  in  1863,  passed  an  act  provid 
ing  for  their  removal."  2 

Mr.  Walker  speaks  of  the  Pimas  and  Mari- 
copas  in  Arizona  as  peaceful,  loyal,  and  consid 
erably  advanced  in  certain  features  of  agricul 
ture  and  civilization,  and  then  adds :  "  The 
relations  of  these  bands  with  the  neighboring 
whites  are,  however,  very  unfavorable  to  their 
interests,  and  the  condition  'of  affairs  is  fast 
growing  worse."  3 

Of  the  Indians  in  Washington  Territory,  he 
remarks :  "  Owing  to  the  influx  of  whites, 
many  of  them  have  been  crowded  out,  arid 
some  of  them  have  had  their  own  unquestion 
able  improvements  forcibly  wrested  from 
them."4 

Those  in  the  Round  Valley  agency  "are 
uniformly  quiet  and  peaceable,  notwithstand 
ing  that  they  are  much  disturbed  by  the  white 
trespassers  .  .  .  who  are  all  clamorous  for 

1  Ibid.,  Iml.  Ques.,  170.     .  2  Ibid.,  Ind.  Ques.,  178- 
3  Ibid.,  Ind.  Ques.,  242.      '  4  Ibid.,  Ind.  Ques.,  255, 


OF    THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  107 

breaking   up    the   reservation  and  driving  the 
Indians  out."  1 

Summarily  the  Commissioner  concludes : 
"  Every  State,  and  every  Territory  that  aspires 
to  become  a  State,  will  strive  to  keep  the 
Indians  as  far  as  possible  from  its  own  borders  ; 
while  powerful  combinations  of  speculators 
will  make  their  fight  for  the  last  acre  of  Ind 
ian  lands.  2 

An  Indian  hunt  in  California,  within  1851-4, 
as  described  by  an  English  writer  and  traveller 
there,  will  serve  like  a  picture  to  show  the 
feelings  of  white  border  men  toward  the 
Indians.  A  white  man  had  been  killed  by  the 
Indians  about  twelve  miles  from  Hangtown, 
now  Placerville.  Four  white  men  going  to 
recover  the  body  and  "  hunt"  the  Indians  were 
repulsed.  "  The  next  day  crowds  of  miners 
flocked  in  from  all  quarters,  each  man  equipped 
with  a  long  rifle,  in  addition  to  his  bowie 
knife  and  revolver,  while  two  men,  playing  a 
drum  and  fife,  marched  up  and  down  the 
streets  to  give  a  military  air  to  the  occasion. 
A  public  meeting  was  held  in  one  of  the  gam 
bling  rooms,  at  which  the  governor,  the  sheriff 
of  the  county,  and  other  big  men  of  the  place 
were  present.  The  miners  about  Hangtown 
were  mostly  Americans,  and  a  large  proportion 
1  Ibid.,  Ind.  Ques.,  264-5.  2  Ibid.,  Ind.  Ques.,  119,  120. 


108  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

of  them  were  from  the  United  States,  who  had 
come  by  the  overland  route  across  the  plains  — 
men  who  had  all  their  lives  been  used  to  Ind 
ian  wiles  and  treachery,  and  thought  about 
as  much  of  shooting  an  Indian  as  of  killing 
a  rattlesnake.  They  were  a  rough-looking 
crowd,  long,  gaunt,  wiry  men,  dressed  in  the 
usual  old  flannel-shirt  costume  of  miners,  with 
shaggy  beards,  thin  faces,  hands  and  arms  as 
brown  as  mahogany,  and  with  an  expression 
about  their  eyes  which  boded  no  good  to  any 
Indian  who  should  come  within  range  of  their 
rifles.  .  .  .  The  speech  of  a  Kentuckian  doctor 
was  quite  a  treat.  .  .  .  The  governor  also 
made  a  short  speech,  taking  the  responsibility 
of  raising  a  company  of  one  hundred  men,  at 
five  dollars  a  day,  to  go  and  whip  the  Indians. 
The  sheriff  followed.  .  .  .  Those  who  wished 
to  enlist  were  then  told  to  come  round  to  the 
other  end  of  the  room,  when  nearly  the  whole 
crowd  rushed  eagerly  forward,  and  the  required 
number  was  at  once  enrolled."  The  hunt 
lasted  two  months. 1 

With  a  singular  and  shocking  coolness,  Borth- 
wick  adds  the  following  confessions  and  reflec 
tions  :  "  Their  presence  is  not  compatible  with 
that  of  a  civilized  community;  and  as  the  coun- 

i"  Three  Years  in  California."  B.  J.  D.  Borthwick, 
1851-4;  pp.  132-6. 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  109 

try  becomes  more  thickly  settled  there  will  be 
no  longer  room  for  them.  Their  country  can 
be  made  subservient  to  man,  but  as  they  them 
selves  cannot  be  turned  to  account,  they  must 
move  off  and  make  way  for  their  betters.  This 
may  not  be  very  good  morality,  but  it  is  the 
way  of  the  world,  and  the  aborigines  of  Califor 
nia  are  not  likely  to  share  a  better  fate  than 
those  of  many  another  country."  In  view  of 
such  facts  and  such  morality,  the  figures  follow 
ing  need  no  explanation.  By  the  official  census 
of  California  in  1823,  the  number  of  Indians 
was  100,826  ;  in  1880,  it  was  16,277.  The  "  In 
dian  Hunt "  was  midway  between  the  two  dates. 

This  last  passage  quoted  from  Commissioner 
Walker  calls  up  painful  memories  of  what  fol 
lowed  the  close  of  King  Philip's  War.  "  There 
followed  a  bitter  contention  of  colonists  for 
shares  in  the  conquered  territory."  1 

Few  persons  realize  how  frequent  these  re 
movals  to  new  reservations  have  been,  and  how 
many  the  treaties  with  some  tribes,  usually  on 
account  of  land.  This  crowding  the  Indians 
to  new  homes  is  historic  and  chronic,  ancient 
and  modern  with  us. 

While  among  the  Cherokees  in  1880,  I  found 
their  head  men  under  the  discouraging  convic 
tion  that  they  could  not  remain  there  perma- 
1  Freeman's  "  Aborigines"  from  1620,  p.  166. 


110  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

naiitly,  and  so  but  little  interest  was  taken  in 
permanent  improvements.  Six  sevenths  of 
their  dwellings  were  log-houses,  huts,  shanties, 
and  caves. 

Some  of  our  acquisitions  were  made  in  colo 
nial  weakness  and  timidity,  as  our  first  treaty 
with  Indians  was  made  by  the  Plymouth 
Colony,  in  1621.  Our  Dutch  fathers  ran  a  wall 
across  Manhattan  Island,  in  1653,  to  keep  the 
Indians  out  of  New  York,  thereby  gaining-  a 
part  of  the  island,  and  beginning  the  present 
Wall  Street,  so  called  from  that  old  Indian 
wall.  Later  treaties  show  all  the  grotesque 
combination  of  farce  and  tragedy  in  the  appear 
ance  and  acts  of  the  two  "  high  contracting 
parties."  We  have  met  the  blanketed  and 
clouted  red  man  with  all  pomp  and  circum 
stance,  in  ridiculous  imitation  of  ambassadors 
at  Versailles,  in  the  court  of  Louis  XIV. 

With  all  this,  however,  it  should  be  said 
that  there  was  a  show  of  right  and  a  symbol  of 
equity.  It  was  a  recognition,  on  the  part  of 
the  United  States,  of  the  limited  possessory 
rights  of  the  aborigines  to  the  soil,  and  of  a 
body  of  Indians  as  a  nation  or  civil  power. 
From  the  adoption  of  the  constitution  to 
March  3,  1871,  our  government  indulged  in 
the  phantom  of  Indian  nationalities,  and  went 
through  the  motions  of  treaty-making  with 


OF   THE    INDIAN    QUESTION.  Ill 

them,  but  at  that  date  Congress  forbade  such 
recognition  or  style  of  intercourse.  Between 
those  two  dates,  and  it  should  be  formally 
stated  to  the  credit  of  the  goverrnent,  the 
United  States,  by  at  least  372  treaties,  ac 
quired  from  the  Indians  all  land  to  which  a 
tribe  could  show  any  fair  claim,  and  which  is 
now  in  the  possession  of  the  government.  Of 
course  there  has  been  fraud  and  crowding  and 
intimidation  at  times,  but  the  form  of  treaty 
lias  been  preserved.  Noah  Webster  speaks  of 
"the  indispensable  necessity  of  securing  the 
Indian  treaties  from  the  outrageous  frauds  to 
which  they  are  exposed  by  their  unrestrained 
intercourse  with  traders  destitute  of  all  moral 
principle."  1  With  the  single  exception  of  the 
Sioux  case,  after  the  Minnesota  massacre  of 
1862,  our  government  has  always  acquired 
Indian  lands  by  contract  and  not  conquest.2 

SECTION  5.  —  British  Columbia  and  its  Ind 
ians. 

The  English  author,  above  quoted,  Borth- 
wick,  is  sustained  in  such  repulsive  views  by 
the  English  government  itself  in  dealing  with 

1  "  The  First  An.  Rep.  of  the  Am.  Soc.  for  Promoting  the 
Civilization  and  General  Improvement  of  the  Indian  Tribes 
in  the  U.  S.,"  p.  30,  1824. 

2  "Ind.  Com.  Report,"  1872,  pp.  83,84. 


112  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

an  Indian  tribe  in  British  Columbia.  The  case 
is  here  cited,  not  simply  to  show  that  the 
author  is  sustained  by  the  example  of  his  own 
government,  but  that  the  recognition  of  Indian 
rights  is  no  necessary  part  of  a  so-called  Chris 
tian  civilization. 

British  Columbia  is  assumed  to  have  had, 
within  recent  times,  30,000  Indians,  of  whom 
some  tribes  were  so  grossly  pagan  and  barbar 
ous  as  to  be  even  cannibals.  It  is  almost  im 
possible  to  describe  the  brutal  and  bloody  and 
animal  degradation  of  some  of  them.  In  1857 
Mr.  William  Duncan,  an  English  philanthro 
pist  and  lay  Christian,  entered  into  the  work 
of  civilizing  one  of  the  most  corrupt  and  vio 
lent  of  them.  The  tribe  was  of  the  Tsim- 
shean  stock,  and  had  a  home  near  Fort  Simpson, 
a  trading-post  of  the  Hudson  Bay  Company. 
They  regarded  him  as  throwing  his  life  away 
by  exposing  himself  among  them,  and  they 
sought  to  hold  him  back  from  an  almost  cer 
tain  and  horrible  end. 

After  spending  five  years  among  them  he 
succeeded  in  winning  about  fifty  of  them  to  a 
tolerable  adoption  of  the  leading  principles  and 
practices  of  a  Christian  civilization.  This  was 
accomplished  while,  at  the  same  time,  he  was 
introducing  among  them  the  simpler  and  ruder 
mechanics,  and  temporal  comforts  of  ordinary 


OF   THE   INDIAN  QUESTION.  113 

white  border  men.  He  was  fortunate  in  find 
ing,  near  to  Fort  Simpson,  a  settlement  of  2300 
of  these  Indians,  who,  unlike  our  later  and 
nomadic  tribes,  lived  a  village  life,  in  separate 
and  permanent  houses. 

Of  course  it  was  quite  impossible  to  deal 
very  successfully  with  these  reforming  ones 
while  they  were  in  constant  association  with 
the  2000  and  more  who  persisted  in  maintain 
ing  their  pagan  practices  and  barbarous  habits. 
Mr.  Duncan,  therefore,  withdrew  the  Christian 
Indians  into  a  colony  by  themselves,  about 
seventeen  miles  from  the  post,  and  to  a  tide 
water  location  and  old  village  site,  called  Met- 
lakahtla.  The  new  town  covered  two  acres  of 
land,  and  was  laid  out  into  lots  60  by  120  feet. 
It  was  within  an  old  reservation  of  their  own,  as 
the  Indians  supposed,  of  about  70,000  acres.  It 
had,  finally,  a  church  seating  1200  people,  a 
town  hall,  dispensary,  reading-room,  market,  a 
blacksmith,  carpenter,  cooper,  and  tinshop, 
a  work-shop  and  soap-factory.  A  system  of 
civil  government  was  organized  by  themselves, 
a  school-room  was  provided,  as  also  a  village 
store,  by  themselves,  and  the  profits  were 
turned  in  for  the  town  fund  and  general  good. 
The  colony  grew  to  the  number  of  about 
1000,  and  was  orderly,  prosperous,  and  Avas 
fairly  growing  in  intelligence  and  morality. 


114  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

Its  influence  was  widely  felt  on  the  wild  tribes 
around.  Even  the  Chilkats,  a  fierce  tribe  in 
Alaska,  came  600  miles  to  see  the  wonder,  and 
asked  to  see  the  book  which  had  done  so  much 
to  work  the  wonder.  When  the  Bible  was 
produced,  and  its  power  explained,  each  of  the 
wild  Alaskans  touched  it  reverently  with  the 
tip  of  his  finger,  exclaiming,  "  Ahm  !  ahm  !  " 
It  is  good  !  it  is  good  ! 

A  thrifty  village  business  sprang  up,  of  a 
domestic  kind,  and  some  foreign,  specially 
in  canned  salmon.  Then  border  and  harpy 
traders,  who  hang  everywhere  on  the  sel 
vage  and  thrums  of  civilization,  and  keep 
just  in  advance  of  the  Decalogue,  forced  them 
selves  on  this  comparative  Eden  in  the  great 
north  land.  As  this  primitive  planting  of  a 
better  life  had  a  government  in  and  of  itself, 
and  as  weak  as  it  was  sovereign,  Mr.  Duncan 
found  it  exceedingly  difficult  to  protect  it 
from  decivilizing  influences  of  poorly  civilized 
whites,  —  Hudson  Bay  traders  on  the  one  side, 
and  coasters  on  the  other.  The  simple  colo 
nists  were  constantly  tempted  to  the  lowest 
vices,  usually  led  m  by  vicious  whiskey. 

Mr.  Duncan  had  not  seen  the  way  clear  as 
yet  to  introduce  the  church  proper,  with  its 
creeds  and  ceremonials,  but  had  directed  his 
labors  mainly  to  secure  an  every-day  moral 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  115 

and  Christian  life.  This  plan  did  not  com 
mend  itself  to  the  resident  officials  of  the 
Church  Missionary  Society,  which  had  been 
somewhat  auxiliary  to  the  growth  of  the  enter 
prise,  and  they  therefore  sought  to  embody  the 
colony  in  the  general  church  organization  for 
British  Columbia,  and  put  it  under  the  cere 
monies  and  rituals  of  their  form  of  Christianity. 
Still  Mr.  Duncan  preferred  to  keep  these  simple 
and  devout  natives  for  the  present  to  a  few  great 
and  good  points  of  daily  life,  which  keep  one 
so  close  to  the  sources  of  spiritual  power  and 
to  the  simplicity  of  the  apostolic  forms  of 
Christianity. 

Then  the  bishop  assumed  to  occupy  the 
colony  as  a  mission,  and  took  ecclesiastical 
control,  while  yet  nine  tenths  of  the  colonists 
adhered  to  Mr.  Duncan  as  their  redeemer  from 
paganism  and  cannibalism,  and  as  their  teacher 
and  spiritual  father,  and  the  civil  founder  of 
their  prosperous  State.  Then  was  illustrated 
that  critical  saying  of  Bishop  Patterson  :  "  I 
have  for  years  thought  that  we  seek  in  our  mis 
sions  a  great  deal  too  much  to  make  English 
Christians." 

The  missionary  society  had  some  claim  on 
the  buildings  because  of  some  contributions 
toward  their  erection,  but  when,  because  of  this, 
they  wished  to  encumber  these  natives  in  their 


116  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

simple  piety  with  an  elaborate  and  stately  wor 
ship,  depose  their  pastor  and  impose  one  not 
of  their  choice,  they  objected,  and  asked  the 
society  to  remove  the  buildings  (jointly  owned) 
if  they  would,  and  leave  the  Indians  in  peace 
able  possession  of  their  own  two  acres  of  land. 

This  brought  the  question  of  title  to  the 
land  to  the  front,  and  the  native  Christians 
wrote  to  the  society  as  follows  :  "  The  God  of 
heaven,  who  created  man  upon  the  earth,  gave 
this  land  to  our  forefathers,  some  of  whom  once 
lived  on  these  very  two  acres,  and  we  have  re 
ceived  the  land  by  direct  succession  from  them. 
No  man-made  law  can  justly  take  from  us  this, 
the  gift  of  Him  who  is  the  source  of  all  true 
law  and  justice.  Relying  on  this,  the  highest 
of  all  titles,  we  claim  our  land,  and  notify  the 
society,  through  you,  its  deputies,  to  move  off 
the  two  acres." 

In  giving  this  notice  they  relied  on  what 
the  Governor-General  of  the  Dominion  of 
Canada,  Earl  Dufferein,  had  said,  in  a  speech 
on  the  land  question,  in  1876,  at  Victoria:  "  In 
Canada,  no  government,  whether  provincial  or 
central,  has  failed  to  acknowledge  that  the 
original  title  to  the  lanch  existed  in  the  Indian 
tribes.  Before  we  touch  an  acre  we  make  a 
treaty,  and  having  agreed  upon  and  paid  the 
stipulated  price,  we  enter  into  possession." 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  117 

The  Metlnkahtlans  also  laid  their  grievances, 
as  to  title,  before  the  Superintendent  of  Indian 
Affairs,  as  one  branch  of  the  government,  and 
with  much  confidence  of  success.  He  advised 
that  the  Church  Missionary  Society  withdraw 
and  leave  the  Indians  in  peaceable  possession,  as 
of  their  own  land.  Yet  the  government  took 
no  steps,  nor  did  the  society  accede  to  the 
official  judgment.  When  another  notice  was 
served  on  the  bishop  to  remove,  the  government 
came  to  the  defence  of  the  society,  and  in 
formed  the'  Indians  that  they  had  no  rights 
whatever  in  the  land,  but  that  the  title 
rested  in  the  queen.  Then,  government  sur 
veyors  appeared  to  bound  off,  and  cut  up  the 
two  acres,  that  it  might  be  secured  formally  to 
the  Church  Missionary  Society,  through  the 
bishop.  The  powerless  natives  next  took  coun 
sel  of  an  eminent  lawyer  at  Victoria,  who  gave 
opinion  "  that  the  Indians  cannot  be  molested  in 
the  possession  of  lands  occupied  by  them  prior 
to  the  advent  of  white  men,  unless  in  pur 
suance  of  treaties  duly  entered  into  by  them." 
This  opinion  was  obtained  by  a  visit  to 
Victoria,  600  miles  away.  Then,  to  secure 
their  rights  and  to  settle  all  difficulties  amica 
bly  by  a  direct  arrangement  with  government, 
a  deputation  of  these  Indians  went  to  Ottawa, 
a  round  trip  of  7000  miles.  This  was  in 


118  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

the  summer  of  1885,  and  they  brought  back 
promises  that  all  their  grievances  should  be 
lifted.  But  the  hopes  thus  given  were  not 
to  be  realized.  The  question  of  title  was 
traced  back  to  the  terms  of  union  on  which 
British  Columbia  came  into  the  Canadian 
Dominion,  in  1871.  When  that  union  was 
consummated,  British  Columbia  had  about 
60,000  people,  of  whom  one  half  were  abo 
rigines.  The  province  contained  390,344 
square  miles  —  about  three  times  the  area 
of  England,  Scotland,  Ireland  and  Wales. 
Of  all  this,  ten  square  miles  only  were  re 
served  for  the  Indians  —  about  two  acres 
apiece  !  It  appeared  to  be  a  deep  scheme 
to  put  that  immense  domain  within  the  reach 
of  land-hungry  speculators, —  a  huge  Indian- 
ring.  The  plans  to  reserve  even  the  poor 
remnant  to  the  Indians  lacked  definiteness 
and  real  worth ;  for  in  1875  the  minister  of 
justice  reported  that  there  were  no  reserva 
tions  in  British  America,  while  the  govern 
ment  had  obtained  no  surrenders  from-  the 
native  occupants.  The  government  simply 
assumed  possession  in  a  declarative  way.  More 
recently,  the  Chief  Justice  for  British  Columbia 
declared  at  Victoria,  while  arguing  the  land 
question,  that  the  Indians  have  no  rights  what 
ever  in  the  soil.  Afterward,  it  was  officially 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  119 

declared  to  them  that  though  they  inherited 
the  land  from  their  ancestors,  before  the  white 
man  came,  they  were  suffered  to  be  in  the 
lands  in  mere  charity,  and  by  the  grace  of  the 
crown.  In  defence  of  this  opinion,  the  decision 
of  Chancellor  Boyd,  of  Ontario,  is  quoted : 
"  As  heathens  and  barbarians,  it  was  not 
thought  that  they  had  any  proprietary  title  to 
the  soil,  nor  any  such  claim  thereto  as  to 
interfere  with  the  plantations  and  the  general 
prosecution  of  colonization.  The}7  were  treated 
4  justty  and  graciously,'  as  Lord  Bacon  advised, 
but  no  legal  ownership  of  the  land  was  ever  at 
tributed  to  them." 

The  government  ordered  the  land  of  Metla- 
kahtla  to  be  surveyed  as  crown  lands,  as  I  have 
stated.  The  Indians  considered  this  an  inva 
sion  of  private  rights,  and  prevented  variously 
the  survey,  though  without  any  violent  or 
riotous  proceedings.  Then,  armed  vessels  and 
soldiers  protected  the  surveyors,  and  the  work 
was  completed,  and  for  nominal  sums  previously 
arranged,  it  is  said,  the  Indian  lands  passed  into 
the  hands  of  white  men. 

But  we  need  not  detail.  Suffice  it  to  say 
that  this  series  of  events  terminated  in  the 
utter  defeat  of  the  Indians.  Law  and  prece 
dent  were  quoted  from  colonial  and  provincial 
New  York,  from  the  edicts  of  the  Charleses, 


120  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

and  from  the  hard  and  mediaeval  times  of 
Great  Britian,  as  if  oppressive  usage  should 
not  wear  away  under  the  softening  Christian 
spirit  of  the  advancing  centuries.  Without 
treaty  or  compensation,  and  even  without  war 
and  conquest,  the  Indians  were  officially  declared 
to  have  no  rights  in  the  land  of  British  Colum 
bia.  Being  thus  beggared  by  law,  they  were 
allowed  but  parcels  of  land  for  temporary  use, 
and  as  a  charity  of  which,  at  any  time,  they 
were  liable  to  be  dispossessed,  under  the  pres 
sure  of  white  neighbors,  or  by  the  scheming 
of  speculators. 

Bancroft,  in  his  history  of  British  Colum 
bia,  sums  up  the  policy  of  British  Amer 
ica  with  the  Indians  in  very  plain  words  : 
"  The  cruel  treacheries  and  massacres,  by 
which  nations  have  been  thinned,  and  flicker 
ing  remnants  of  once  powerful  tribes  gathered 
on  government  reservations,  or  reduced  to  a 
handful  of  beggars,  dependant  for  a  livelihood 
on  charity,  theft,  or  the  wages  of  prostitution, 
form  an  unwritten  chapter  in  the  history  of 
this  region.  That  this  process  of  duplicity 
was  unnecessary  as  well  as  infamous,  I  shall 
not  attempt  to  show,  as  the  discussion  of 
Indian  policy  is  no  part  of  my  present  purpose. 
Whatever  the  cause,  whether  from  an  inhumane 
civilized  policy  or  the  decrees  of  fate,  it  is  evi- 


OF  THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  121 

dent  that  the  Columbians,  in  common  with  all 
the  aborigines  of  America,  are  doomed  to  ex 
tinction." 

The  village  of  Metlakahtla,  numbering  about 
1000  souls,  is  now  a  petitioner  to  the  United 
States  for  permission  to  move  over  into  Alaska, 
from  whose  border  it  is  about  thirty  miles,  and 
the  project  is  regarded  favorably  at  Washing 
ton,  and  will  probably  come  before  Congress  at 
its  next  session. 

I  have  presented  this  case  with  its  outline 
facts  and  laws,  in  skeleton,  and  it  must  be 
confessed  that  it  is  a  very  ghastly  skeleton. 
Two  reflections  will  show  the  pertinence  of 
the  reference  to  the  general  topic  of  this 
volume. 

The  North  American  Indians  are  in  quite 
similar  relations  to  the  government  of  the 
whites  on  either  side  of  the  international  boun 
dary,  and  in  substance  their  treatment  is  quite 
alike  by  both.  The  Indians  usually  receive  their 
first  practical  knowledge  of  the  government  of 
white  men  by  being  forced  to  the  defensive  of 
their  ancestral  rights  and  usages.  The  land 
title,  on  which  so  much  of  all  a  white  man 
prizes  depends,  and  all  of  worth  to  a  red  man, 
he  soon  finds  is  generally  and  practically  a 
nullity  in  the  opinion  of  both  British  and 
American  governments.  Chief  Justice  Mar- 


122  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

shall  has  stated  briefly  the  Indian  laws  of  Eng 
land  in  this  country  when  we  were  colonies, 
and  the  States  have  inherited,  and,  with  modifi 
cations,  adopted  the  same  :  "  According  to  the 
theory  of  the  British  constitution,  all  vacant 
lands  are  vested  in  the  crown.  .  .  .  No  distinc 
tion  was  taken  between  vacant  lands  and  lands 
occupied  by  Indians.  .  .  .  All  our  institutions 
recognize  the  absolute  title  of  the  crown,  sub 
ject  only  to  the  Indian  right  of  occupancy,  and 
recognize  the  absolute  title  of  the  crown  to  ex 
tinguish  that  right." 

With  the  exception  of  a  few  parcels  of  land, 
and  wide  asunder,  the  Indian  has  no  guarantee, 
like  that  of  a  white  man,  to  the  soil  of  his 
truck-patch  and  the  lot  of  his  wigwam  or 
framed  cabin.  The  land  of  the  white  owner, 
under  deed  properly  executed,  is  as  good  to  him 
and  to  his  heirs  as  the  government  is  strong. 
With  the  Indian,  his  treaty  titles  are  as  perish 
able  as  the  paper  on  which  they  are  written, 
and  often  as  short  lived  as  the  grass  on  the 
house-tops,  "  which  wi there tli  afore  it  groweth 
up.'*  Nor  is  the  force  of  this  strong  statement 
much  abated  by  the  fact  that  often  the  inexor 
able  pressure  of  the  border  mpn  or  of  govern 
ment  has  some  formality,  and  some  simulation 
of  just  and  orderly  proceedings,  when  finally  it 
1  Johnson  and  Mclutosh  aud  Wheaton. 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  123 

gains  its  end,  and  the  irresistible  party  closes 
in  on  the  coveted  Indian  lands. 

The  Provincial  governments  on  the  north  of  us 
boasted  of  a  kinder  and  wiser  policy  than  that 
of  the  United  States,  and  referred  to  the  friend 
ship  with  which  -  they  and  the  natives  were 
jointly  occupying  the  same  territory.  In  our 
i{  Oregon :  The  Struggle  for  Possession,"  we 
took  occasion  to  show  that  this  might  well  be 
and  continue  while  the  great  North  Land  was 
held  by  the  Hudson  Bay  Company  as  a  game 
preserve,  and  the  white  man  set  steel-traps  with 
the  Indians,  and  made  social  and  domestic  equal 
ity  with  them  ;  but  that  when  the  factory  took 
the  place  of  the  steel-trap,  and  civilized  homes 
the  place  of  promiscuous  forest-life,  trouble 
and  Indian  wars  would  come.  That  time 
has  arrived  sooner  than  we  expected.  Our 
Northern  Pacific  Railroad  hurried  the  coming 
of  the  Canadian  Pacific,  and  that  precipitated 
the  Indian  turbulence  and  wars  north  and  west 
of  Winnipeg,  in  the  wide  and  wild  lands  of  the 
Indian  owner  arid  the  white  adventurer.  Kiel 
and  his  struggles  for  his  people  are  sample  and 
type.  Now  comes  the  Metlakahtla  case,  blood 
less  because  they  have  been  won  to  Christian 
ity.  The  remaining  29,000  may  not  welcome 
the  surveyors  over  the  graves  of  their  fathers 
so  gently.  Their  future  is  ominous,  and  the 


124  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

vision  is  not  encouraging.  But  yet  we  are  not 
ready  to  see  what  Bancroft  does  :  "  The  Col 
umbians,  in  common  with  all  the  aborigines  of 
America,  are  doomed  to  extinction." 

The  other  reflection  weighs  on  us  very  sadly. 
With  a  superior  civilization,  and  with  the  gentle 
religion  of  the  Prince  of  Peace,  we  come  by 
shady  approaches  to  the  homes  of  the  Indians. 
They  are  graded  all  the  way  from  the  painted 
savage  and  wolfish  cannibal  to  those  of  fair 
and  happy  homes,  in  framed  houses  and  among 
tilled  fields,  with  schools  and  churches  and 
civil  courts.  In  the  Cherokee  country  of  1820, 
and  in  the  Tsimshean  of  1886,  where  the  red 
man's  style  of  life  does  not  suffer  much  in 
comparison  with  that  of  his  white  neighbor, 
they  are  outlawed  and  forced  from  the  homes 
of  their  childhood,  the  fields  of  their  tillage, 
and  the  graves  of  their  ancestors.  Possibly 
paganism  and  savagery  may  work  a  forfeiture 
of  inherited  and  natural  rights,  but  will  civil 
ized  and  Christian  men  declare  and  enforce 
the  forfeiture?  Because  we  are  a  Christian 
people,  may  we  assume  to  seize  the  lands  of  those 
who  are  not  ?  Do  all  land  titles  and  equity 
and  rights  lie  as  a  matter  of  course  on  the  side 
of  those  who  call  themselves  Christian  ?  Is 
this  seizure  one  of  the  notes  in  the  anthem  of 
"  peace  on  earth  "  ?  If  our  civilization  and 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  125 

our  Christianity  will  not  recognize  the  natural 
rights  of  those  who  differ  from  us,  where  is  the 
elevated  humanity"  of  the  one  or  the  divinity  of 
the  other?  With  all  the  more  force  these 
questions  come  home  to  the  people  on  both 
sides  of  our  international  boundary,  where 
those  who  are  despoiled  and  outlawed  and 
made  continental  tramps  are  as  civil  and  as 
Christian  as  those  who  invade  and  despoil  and 
take  possession  of  their  heritage.  But  we 
return  from  British  Columbia.  l 

SECTION  6.  —  Uncertainty  of  Residence,  and 
Indian  Farming  Impossible. 

With  this  semblance  of  equity  we  have  never 
theless  negatived  ultimate  justice  and  Indian 
farming  by  constant  changes  of  reservations. 
The  one  deep  cardinal  thought  that  the  govern 
ment  has  impressed  on  the  Indian  is  that  of 
change  of  home.  The  only  certainty  he  has,  as 
to  his  present  land  tenure,  is  its  uncertainty. 
That  old  treaty  phrase,  "  as  long  as  grass  grows 
and  water  runs,"  is  a  historic  sarcasm  on 
our  Indian  policy.  In  his  tour  of  conference 
and  observation,  by  order  of  Calhoun,  Secre 
tary  of  War,  among  the  Indian  tribes,  in  1820, 

1  "  The  Story  of  Metlakahtla."  By  Henry  S.  Willcome. 
Saxon  and  Co.,  London  and  New  York,  1887. 


126  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

the  Rev.  Dr.  Jedidiah  Morse  was  constrained  to 
this  declaration  :  "  In  repeated  interviews  with 
them,  after  informing  them  what  good  things 
their  Great  Father,  the  President,  was  ready 
to  bestow  on  them  if  they  were  willing  to 
receive  them,  the  Chiefs  significantly  shook  their 
heads,  and  said :  *  It  may  be  so,  or  it  may 
be  not ;  we  doubt  it.  We  don't  know  what 
to  believe.' " l 

The  worthlessness  of  the  reservation  system 
for  agriculture  because  of  its  uncertainty, 
President  Jackson  states  with  great  candor 
and  force,  in  his  first  message,  1829 :  "  Pro 
fessing  a  desire  to  civilize  them,  we  have  at 
the  same  time  lost  no  opportunity  to  purchase 
their  lands  and  thrust  them  farther  into  the 
wilderness.  By  this  means  they  have  not  only 
been  kept  in  a  wandering  state,  but  been  led 
to  look  upon  us  as  unjust,  and  indifferent 
to  their  fate.  Thus,  though  lavish  in  its  own 
expenditures  upon  the  subject,  government  has 
constantly  defeated  its  own  policy." 

This  reservation  theory  has  suggested  some 
singular  expedients  for  disposing  of  the  Indian 
question.  In  1778,  while  yet  in  the  dubious 
struggle  of  the  revolution,  and  when  the  Eng 
lish  were  enlisting  the  Indians  Tigainst  the  col 
onies,  we  formed  a  treaty  with  the  Delawares  in 
1  "  Report  to  the  Sec.  of  War,"  etc.,  pp.  89,  90. 


OF   THE   INDIAN    QUESTION.  127 

which,  under  certain  provisos,  "  it  is  further 
agreed  on  between  the  contracting  parties, 
...  to  invite  any  other  tribes,  who  have  been 
friends  to  the  interest  of  the  United  States, 
to  join  the  present  confederation,  and  to  form 
a  State,  whereof  the  Delaware  nation  shall  be 
the  head,  and  have  a  representative  in  Con 
gress.  .  .  ."J 

Under  a  change  from  that  policy,  the  pitiable 
remnant  of  the  Delawares  are  down  on  the  Red 
River,  in  the  extreme  south-west  of  the  Indian 
Territory,  and  number,  all  told,  about  80  souls. 

Possibly  the  elaborate,  suggestive,  and  some 
what  seminal  report  of  John  C.  Calhoun,  in 
1818,  had  Indian  States  in  view  when  he 
proposed  two  large  reservations  on  which  to 
collect  the  Indians.  The  southern  one  we 
have.  The  one  proposed  for  the  north  was 
never  formed. 

The  process  of  force,  outlawry,  and  ostracism, 
by  which  the  Cherokee  nation  was  removed 
from  Georgia  to  become  occupants  of  this 
southern  reservation,  the  present  Indian  Ter 
ritory,  is  no  unfair  illustration  of  our  ruinous 
policy  on  Indian  farming.  "  By  the  advice  of 
Washington  and  every  successive  president 
of  the  United  States,  and  assisted  by  grants  of 
money  from  Congress,  made  for  that  express 
1  "Laws  of  U.  S.,"  Duane,  ii.  304. 


128 


purpose,  the  Cherokees  had  been  rapidly  ad 
vancing  in  civilization.  They  had  become  a 
nation  of  farmers  so  entirely  that  persons 
extensively  acquainted  with  them  did  not 
know  a  single  individual  who  depended  on 
the  chase  for  a  subsistence.  They  were  un 
willing  to  leave  their  comfortable  habitations, 
their  cultivated  fields,  and  the  graves  of  their 
fathers,  and  remove  into  a  distant  and  un 
known  wilderness.  They  had  organized  a 
regular  government,  and  were,  to  a  consider 
able  extent,  supplied  with  schools  and  religious 
institutions.  For  several  years  they  had  re 
fused  to  sell  any  more  of  their  lands,  and  had 
even  enacted  a  law  for  punishing  with  death 
any  chief  who  should  attempt  it.  Georgia  did 
not  need  the  lands,  for  her  population  was 
not  more  than  seven  souls  to  a  square  mile  ; 
but  the  avaricious  part  of  her  citizens  coveted 
them,  for  money  could  be  made  by  trading 
in  them,  and  some  of  them  contained  gold 
mines.  It  was  proposed  that  the  State  should 
take  possession  of  the  lands,  divide  the  whole 
into  small  portions,  and  distribute  them  among 
her  citizens  by  lottery."  It  should  be  here 
interposed  that  some  years  before  a  large 
minority  of  the  tribe  had"  removed  under 
pressure,  and  with  the  usual  Indian  willing 
ness,  to  the  new  opening  over  the  Mississippi ; 


OF   THE    INDIAN    QUESTION.  129 

to  compel  the  rest  to  go  was  the  purpose  of 
Georgia. 

UA  law  was  enacted  by  the  Legislature  of 
Georgia,  to  take  effect  in  June,  1830,  extending 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  State  over  that  part  of 
the  Cherokee  nation  within  her  chartered  lim 
its.  Against  this  the  Cherokees  remonstrated 
to  the  President ;  but  he,  through  the  Secre 
tary  of  War,  answered  that  he  had  no  authority 
to  interfere.  Encouraged  by  this  state  of  things, 
Alabama  and  Mississippi  enacted  similar  laws 
with  respect  to  the  Indian  Territories  within 
the  limits  that  they  claimed.  All  these  laws 
were  passed  for  the  avowed  purpose  of  making 
the  situation  of  the  Indians  so  uncomfortable 
that  the}r  would  be  willing  to  sell  out  and  re 
move  to  the  West.  Success  was  confidently 
anticipated  ;  and  speculators  were  already  in 
quiring  what  parts  of  the  lands  about  to  be 
vacated  would  be  most  salable,  and  making 
arrangements  to  supply  provision  for  the  Ind 
ians  while  on  their  way,  at  enormous  profits, 
at  the  public  expense."  l 

Of  course  the  Cherokees  went  over  the  river. 
What  could  be  otherwise?  Those  three  States 
combined  to  force  them  out,  and  the  govern 
ment  at  Washington  confessed  its  inability  to 

1  "  History  of  the  American  Board  of  Commissioners  for 
Foreign  Missions,"  by  Joseph  Tracy,  1842,  pp.  228-230. 


130  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

interpose.  Always,  at  Washington,  on  the 
Indian  question,  the  government  in  action  is 
the  sentiment  of  the  white  border,  as  one  of 
the  two  parties  in  interest. 

Civilization,  not  to  say  Christianity,  blushes 
at  the  record.  At  the  treaty  of  Holston,  this 
article  was  inserted  by  our  government :  "  That 
the  Cherokee  nation  may  be  led  to  a  greater 
degree  of  civilization,  and  to  become  herdsmen 
and  cultivators,  instead  of  remaining  in  a  state 
of  hunters,  the  United  States  will  from  time 
to' time  furnish  gratuitously  the  said  nation 
with  useful  implements  of  husbandry,  and  fur 
ther  to  assist  the  said  nation  in  so  desirable  a 
pursuit,"  etc.  In  1816,  General  Jackson,  an 
Indian  agent,  gave  them  two  ploughs,  six  axes, 
and  six  hoes,  to  encourage  and  aid  them  toward 
civilized  life,  and  at  the  same  time  Cyrus 
Kingsbury,  a  missionary,  settled  among  them 
as  teacher  and  preacher.  Now  they  fall  into 
line  under  military  order  of  this  same  govern 
ment,  and  turn  their  backs  on  their  homes  and 
farms  and  stock,  and  their  faces  toward  sun 
set  and  destiny.  In  1880,  while  riding  with 
an  ex-chief  of  the  Cherokees  among  his  own 
herds,  he  said  to  me :  "  Farming  is  not  good  for 
the  Indians."  He  had  better  reasons  for  saying 
that  than  any  white  man  can  conceive  of,  or 
any  white  farmer's  experience  can  suggest. 


OF    THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  131 

Almost  all  Indian  farmers  in  the  United  States 
are  as  those  Cherokees,  and  almost  all  their 
white  neighbors  are  as  those  Georgians  !  In 
1880  Georgia  had  within  her  border  124  In 
dians. 

Still  without  a  policy  of  general  acceptance, 
and  learning  but  little  from  our  failures,  with 
the  Indians  receding  and  wasting,  and  their 
civilization  adjourned  from  one  generation  to 
another,  Secretary  Kirk  wood  reproduced,  with 
modifications,  early  in  1881,  the  Calhoun  plan 
of  sixty  years  before.  He  would  have  a  few 
large  reservations,  and  the  lands  finally  held  in 
severally,  in  suitable  quantity,  and  under  sensi 
ble  conditions.  The  inauguration  of  this  pol 
icy  would  interfere  with  old  home  attachments, 
break  up  again  their  agricultural  and  civil  and 
domestic  beginnings,  and  either  dissolve  the 
tribes,  or  consolidate  and  locate  them  in  juxta 
positions  where  they  would  be  liable  to  become 
irritating  and  belligerent.  A  general  move 
ment  in  this  direction  would  possibly  dissemi 
nate  a  general  discontent,  and  intensify  the 
traditional  uncertainty  that  lias  hitherto  at 
tended  all  government  plans  with  them.  If 
these  results  should  follow  the  adoption  of  the 
plan,  their  advance  in  civilization  would  for  a 
time  be  barred  by  their  dissatisfaction,  dis 
couragement,  and  indifference. 


132  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

SECTION  7.  —  Still  Experimenting  on  Indian  Pol 
icies,  and  Invading  Indian  Farms. 

At  the  end  of  a  century  our  government  is 
without  an  Indian  policy  ;  Mr.  Dawes  is  re 
ported  as  saying  recently  that  "what  has  been 
done  in  the  past  is  of  no  use,  except  to  teach 
us  that  something  different  is  needed  in  the 
future."  The  same  causes  which  have,  for  two 
centuries,  been  diminishing  the  Indian  fields 
and  driving  their  owners  beyond  the  Missis 
sippi,  are  still  working,  but  with  an  increased 
energy,  arid  on  a  wider  compass.  To  name 
any  exceptions  to  this,  as  the  Marshpee  and 
Gay  Head  remnants  in  Massachusetts,  or  more 
numerous  bands  in  Western  States,  is  only  to 
expose  the  inefficiency  of  our  Indian  system, 
and  manifest  its  failure  by  graded  illustrations, 
the  oldest  being  the  most  pitiable  and  con 
demning. 

It  is  true  the  Indians  have  not  shown  an 
educated  interest  in  agriculture,  but  the  best 
of  their  farms  have  not  been  improved  bv  a 
new  and  white  neighborhood  and  the  example 
of  white  settlements.  Indian  farming  has  been 
in  the  advance  of  white  rmnigrant  neighbors, 
and  abandoned  when  they  came.  Some  figures 
in  the  census  of  1880  are  encouraging.  Da- 
kotah  has  27,500  Indians,  and  between  2000 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  133 

and  3000  cultivate  the  land.  Some  of  these 
had  begun  farms,  and  repeatedly,  in  regions 
far  to  the  east,  but  had  been  forced  along  by 
the  white  tide.  Now  they  are  trying  it  over 
again,  perhaps  for  the  fifth  time,  but  always  at 
a  distance  from  the  whites.  Indeed,  it  may  be 
said  as  a  general  truth  that  the  best  Indian 
farms  are  those  farthest  from  the  farms  of 
nvhite  men.  In  Montana  there  are  19,791 
Indians,  and  a  few  hundred,  much  under  500, 
are  in  some  farm  interests.  The  Upper  Mis 
souri,  the  Yellowstone,  and  the  yet  inaccessible 
or  undesired  heads  of  other  continental  rivers, 
show  what  are  called  Indian  farms  under 
government  appropriations  and  management. 
They  are,  however,  a  poor  basis  for  prophecy, 
because  of  recent  opening,  and  in  advance  of 
immigrants  and  speculators.  Indian  farms  lie 
.all  the  way  east  of  them  to  the  Atlantic,  under 
the  warranty  deeds  of  white  men.  We  wait 
with  a  painful  certainty  as  to  result  till  white 
men  want  those  upper  valleys  of  the  United 
States. 

It  is  now  a  popular  and  philanthropic  sug 
gestion  to  try  and  end  the  Indian  troubles  by 
turning  the  250,000,  more  or  less,  of  this  hated 
race  into  farmers.  As  if  we  had  tried  all  other 
expedients,  and  hit  upon  this  as  a  final  experi 
ment,  we  are  pressing  on  them  the  choice  to 


134  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

work  or  die.  The  effrontery  of  the  proposition 
would  be  ludicrous  if  it  were  not  cruel.  For 
two  hundred  years  the  people  of  the  United 
States  have  been  working  the  best  possible  pol 
icy  to  break  up  the  inferior  farming  of  this 
pitiable  race,  and  discourage  them  from  under 
taking  more  or  doing  better.  Tt  is  believed 
we  have  taken  every  cornfield  of  the  Indian  be 
tween  Plymouth  and  the  Rocky  Mountains. 
If  any  yet  remains,  it  is  at  a  front  not  yet 
reached  by  us.  There  are,  as  yet,  partial  fail 
ures  of  our  policy  of  removal  here  and  there, 
in  the  newer  States,  where  a  few  agricultural 
Indians  are  to  be  found.  They  are  probably 
only  temporary  exceptions  to  a  final  success. 
As  they  have  already  been  removed  repeatedly 
when  white  settlements  crowded  them,  it  may 
be  expected  that  they  will  move  on,  "as  the 
English  villages  draw  nearer  and  nearer  to 
them,"  as  in  the  days  of  Philip.  When  now 
we  propose  this  scheme  to  them,  the  stinging, 
humiliating-,  and  discouraging  memories  of  gen 
erations  come  over  them.  Why  should  they 
have  any  confidence  in  our  new  promises,  or 
expectation  of  permanency  in  a  new  home  and 
on  another  farm  ? 

It  is  said  the  Indian  is  lazy  and  will  not 
work.  Take  ten  counties  of  good  farmers  iu 
Ohio  or  New  England,  and  discourage  arid 


OF    THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  135 

deceive  and  abuse  them  as  we  have  any  ten 
average  Indian  tribes,  and  will  those  white 
men.  in  the  second  or  fourth  or  six  generation, 
show  themselves  thrifty,  hearty,  and  progres 
sive  farmers,  crowded  from  New  England  and 
Ohio  by  repeated  removals  to  the  headwaters 
of  the  Missouri  or  Arkansas  or  Columbia  ? 
How  long  would  it  take  our  Indian  policy  to 
produce  the  Dalrymple  farm?  How  short  a 
time  to  convert  its  thirty  thousand  acres  of 
wheat  field,  minus  a  few,  into  wild  prairie  and 
buffalo  range?  Even  Indian  human  nature 
ought  to  be  ashamed  if  our  old  policy  would 
not  make  it  lazy  and  listless  and  hopeless. 
Our  Indian  "  ward  "  is  naturally,  logically,  and 
honorably  lazy,  in  opening  farms  in  wild  lands 
for  the  inevitable  white  man.  Deny  to  these 
ten  counties  of  white  farmers  any  warranty 
title  to  their  farms,  or  any  personal  and  sal 
able  rights  in  the  buildings,  wells,  bridges,  and 
fences,  and  tilth,  which  they  have  made ;  deny 
to  them  the  protection  of  law,  and  the  valid 
ity  of  all  government  pledges  and  treaties ; 
follow  them  up  with  forced  removals,  to  work 
other  wild  lands  into  farms ;  do  this  for  half  a 
dozen  generations,  and  will  not  those  white 
farmers  of  the  ten  counties  become  lazy  and 
listless  and  hopeless  ? 

I  have  mentioned  the  policy  of  Mr.  Bourne, 


136  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

of  Colonial  Massachusetts,  to  limit  the  Indian  t 
lands  by  ponds,  so  that  the  whites  might  not 
change  the  bounds.  The  quaint  recorder  of 
the  court  record  of  this  reservation  adds  that 
this  Bourne  "  was  a  man  of  that  discernment 
that  he  considered  it  vain  to  propagate  Chris 
tian  knowledge  among  any  people  without  ter 
ritory  where  they  might  remain  in  force  from 
generation  to  generation  and  not  be  ousted." J 

1  "Plymouth  Colony   Records,"  Mass.  His.  Soc.  Coll., 
vol.  iii.  p.  188, 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  137 


CHAPTER   IV. 

DO   THE   AMERICAN    INDIANS   INCREASE   OR 
DECREASE  ? 

THE  Indian  question  has  as  many  faces  as 
a  polyhedron.  It  has  at  least  ten  :  the  Indian 
agent,  who  lives  in  a  tribe,  and  has  his  political 
compaign  bills  cashed  by  being  made  the  su 
perintendent  of  a  reservation ;  the  Indian  con 
tractor  who  is  to  supply  such  an  amount  of 
goods  and  rations  for  so  many  dollars ;  the 
land  speculator,  who  wishes  to  break  up  cer 
tain  reservations  that  he  may  .handle  their 
acres  in  the  general  land  market ;  the  railroad 
projector,  who  wishes  notices  served  on  the 
tepees  that  the  cars  are  coming;  the  philan 
thropist,  who  would  tabulate  the  wrongs  and 
sorrows  of  the  Indian,  but  lacks  reams  of 
paper;  the  romantic  admirer,  who  has  read  in 
dreamy  Eastern  bowers  of  Cooper's  Indian  of 
fiction  ;  the  citizen  friend,  who  sees  in  a  ballot 
and  a  warranty  deed  for  land  in  severalty  a 
cure  for  all  civil  ills  that  American  flesh  is 
heir  to ;  the  man  of  visions,  who  sees  in  latest 
and  popular  schemes  the  redemption  of  the 


138  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

red  man  ;  the  Christian  workingman,  who  be 
lieves  that  our  holy  religion  is  fully  adequate 
to  make  Christians  of  Indians,  and  save  the 
race  from  extinction  ;  and  the  matter-of-fact 
man,  who  asks  to  what  extent  Indians'  woes 
have  been  lessened,  and  what  plans  are  on 
hand,  and  what  more  will  probably  be  accom 
plished. 

Here,  in  the  extreme  West,  where  we  are 
for  the  purpose  of  acquiring  information,  these 
questions  press :  Where  have  the  American 
Indians  once  lived  ?  And  how  many  ?  And 
where  and  how  many  are  they  now  ? 

SECTION  1.  —  The  number  of  Indians  in  Early 
New  England. 

Referring  to  the  earliest  days  of  the  Ply 
mouth  Colony,  Dr.  Bacon  says :  "  The  Narra- 
gansetts,  inhabiting  all  the  territory  now  in 
cluded  in  the  State  of  Rhode  Island,  are 
supposed  to  have  been  at  that  time  about 
thirty  thousand." l  Schoolcraft  says  that  at 
the  discovery  of  America,  the  number  of  In 
dians  within  the  present  area  of  the  United 
States  did  not  exceed  011?^  million.  Among 
the  earliest  estimates  of  their  number  in  New 

144  The  Genesis  of  the  New  England  Churches."     By 
Leonard  Bacon..    1874.     P.  357. 


OF    THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  189 

England  is  that  of  Gookin,  of  whom  Dwight 
says,  in  his  u  Travels,"  that  he  "  has  left,  in 
many  particulars,  the  best  ancient  account 
extant  of  the  natives  of  this  country." 
Gookin  numbers  80,000  to  "  less  than  half  of 
the  present  New  England,"  which  President 
Dwight  thinks  too  high,  and  puts  the  number 
at  70,000.  This  was  for  the  year  1796- 
ninety  years  ago.1  By  the  census  of  1880,  the 
number  of  Indians  in  the  whole  of  New  Eng 
land  was  4096. 

in  1820,  under  the  instruction  of  the  Hon. 
John  C.  Calhoun,  Secretary  of  War,  the  Rev. 
Jedidiah  Morse,  D.D.,  made  a  visit  into  much 
of  the  Indian  country,  and  also  a  careful  study 
of  the  Indian  question  for  those  times.  He 
found  the  whole  number  of  Indians  east  of  the 
Mississippi  to  be  120, 346. 2  In  the  census  of 
1880,  they  were  17,679,  allowing  one  fifth 
of  all  in  Louisiana  to  be  on  the  east  of  the 
Mississippi.3 

The  report  of  Dr.  Morse  for  the  entire 
United  States  for  1820  gave  425,766,  while  by 
our  last  census,  sixty  years  later,  the  number 

1  ''  Travels   in   New  England.'"     By  Timothy  U wight, 
S.  T.  D.     1822.     Vol.  iii.  pp.  39,  41. 

2  "  Report  to  the  Secretary  of  War  of  the  United  States 
on  Indian  Affairs."     By  the   Rev.  Jedidiah   Morse,  D.D. 
1822.     P.  375. 

3  Appendix,  "  United  States  Census."     1880.     T.  558. 


140  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

is  255,938,  —  Alaska  not  included.  This  is  a 
decrease  in  the  sixty  years  of  169,828.  Two 
things,  however,  should  be  considered :  first, 
the  impossibility  of  any  close  estimate  of  our 
Indians  at  that  time  —  the  number  given  by 
Dr.  Morse  may  be  too  high  or  too  low;  sec 
ondly,  it  must  be  remembered  that  our  census 
of  1880  covers  territory  gained  from  Mexico, 
which  gives  us  33,306  Indians.  This  number 
should  be  subtracted  from  the  whole,  in  order 
to  take  the  census  of  1820  and  that  of  1880 
from  the  same  area.  This  will  show  a  decrease 
of  203,134  from  the  estimate  of  Dr.  Morse 
during  the  sixty  years  ending  with  1880. 

As  to  the  remnants  of  Indians  in  Massa 
chusetts,  the  last  itemized  and  exhaustive 
report  was  made  in  1861. 1  It  is  a  sad  record, 
and  brief — "the  short  and  simple  annals  of 
the  poor."  There  then  remained  the  shreds  of 
ten  bands,  in  all  about  1600  persons,  but 
among  them  all  no  one  drop  of  pure  Indian 
blood,  no  civil  rights  at  the  polls ;  intemperate, 
immoral,  and  unambitious,  and  for  the  ten 
years  preceding,  receiving  the  charities  of  the 
State,  not  including  school-money,  to  the 
amount  of  $29,964.37. 

1  "Massachusetts  Senate  Document  96."  1861.  By 
J.  M.  Earl. 


OF   THE  INDIAN   QUESTION.  141 

SECTION    2.  —  The  number  of  Indians  East  of 
the  Mississippi  in  1820. 

A  wider  territorial  range  than  the  Bay  State 
gives  only  the  same  fact  extended.  One  hun 
dred  years  ago  the  young  republic  had  prac 
tical  possession  of  a  shore  belt  one  hundred 
miles  in  depth  by  nine  hundred  in  length. 
Theoretically,  we  owned  the  remainder  back 
to  the  Mississippi,  witli  the  Indians  in  pos 
session.  The  western  border  of  our  Atlantic 
belt  was  skirted  with  the  cabins  and  wigwams 
of  the  two  races.  By  treaty  and  trick,  pur 
chase  and  fraud,  the  whites  have  come  into 
actual  possession  to  the  Mississippi.  Here  and 
there  is  a  "  reservation,"  with  Indians  on  it, 
as  islands  in  an  overflowing  river  with  their 
trees  half  uprooted.  It  would  be  difficult  to 
tell  how  many  times  single  tribes  have  been 
moved,  till  they  are  now  gathered,  wasted  and 
heartless,  in  the  Indian  Territory.  In  1880  I 
found  the  Cherokees  there,  under  the  six 
teenth  treaty  with  government.  Many  of 
these  serial  movements  to  new  reservations, 
and  other  changes  of  condition,  were  marked 
with  their  attempts  for  our  style  of  life,  but 
their  projects  were  broken  and  their  improve 
ments  were  abandoned  as  fast  as  white  immi 
grants  and  speculators  wanted  their  lands. 


142  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

At  the  time  above  mentioned,  an  ex-chief 
of  the  Cherokee  nation  said  to  the  author, 
and  with  more  of  meaning  than  it  is  possible 
for  a  white  man  to  put  into  the  words : 
"We  are  discouraged,  hopeless,  and  expect  to 
become  extinct." 

The  original  States  of  the  Union  have  not- 
been  preeminent  in  this  wasting  of  the  abo 
rigines.  Newfoundland  was  once  fairly  peo 
pled  with  Indians,  but  the  last  two  of  them  - 
a  man  and  a  woman — were  shot  by  two 
Englishmen  in  1823.  "In  Newfoundland,  as 
in  other  parts  of  America,  it  seems  to  have 
been  for  a  length  of  time  a  meritorious  act  to 
kill  an  Indian."  1  "  Between  Cake  Huron  and 
the  sea  the  remnants  of  them  are  scattered  in 
small  and  deca}dng  tribes,  at  distant  intervals, 
unconnected,  and  of  no  public  importance."  2 

The  Hurons,  or  Wyandots,  were  once  esti 
mated  to  be  30,000.  "  A  feeble  remnant,  a  few 
score  in  number  of  the  Wyandots,  now  survive, 
and  are  represented  at  Washington  by  an  ex 
ceptionally  shabby  white  man,  who  has  received 
the  doubtful  honor  of  adoption  into  the  tribe."  3 

1  "  Report  of    Committee   of    Parliament  on  the  Abo 
rigines  of  North  America."     1837.     Martin's  "  History  of 
the  Hudson's  Bay  Company." 

2  "  Emigrant's  Guide   to  Upper   Canada,"  etc.     By  C. 
Stuart,  Esq.     London,  1820.     Pp.  243,  257. 

3  "  The  Indian  Question."   By  Francis  A.  Walker.   1874 
P.  70. 


OF    THE    INDIAN   QUESTION.  143 

In  1885  this  ancient  and  strong  tribe  reported 
251,  of  whom  -39  were  mixed  bloods,  with  40 
dwelling-houses. 

The  depletion  of  the  race  continued  west  of 
the  Alleghanies,  and  as  rapidly  as  in  the  east. 
When  Colonel  Henderson  obtained  title  of  land 
for  that  abnormal  State  called  Transylvania,  he 
contracted  with  1200  Indian  chiefs,  and  paid 
to  them  for  their  quitclaim  ten  loads  of  goods, 
a  few  fire  arms,  and  some  whiskey.1  So  many 
chiefs  indicated  a  large  Indian  population  at 
that  date,  1775.  At  our  last  census  the  num 
ber  of  Indians  in  Kentucky  — now  about  double 
the  area  of  the  primitive  Transylvania  —  was 
fifty.  It  is  no  longer  "  the  dark  and  bloody 
ground,"  but  "  the  blue  grass  country." 

In  1820,  Dr.  Morse,  the  Indian  Commissioner, 
reported  the  Mennomonies,  Winnebagoes,  Chip- 
peways,  Sioux,  Sacs,  and  Foxes  at  60,000,  but 
the  census  of  1880  puts  them  at  33,795.  In 
1820,  the  Creeks,  Choctaws,  Chickasaws,  Chero- 
kees,  and  Seminoles  were  numbered  at  72.010, 
and  in  1880  the  census  puts  them  as  being 
59,187.  Once  the  Delawares  were  numerous 
and  powerful,  the  fear  of  Pennsylvania.  In 
the  Indian  Commissioner's  Report  for  1880, 
sixty  years  afterward,  they  are  numbered  as  78, 
and  on  the  other  side  of  the  Mississippi.  Dr. 
1  Abbott's  ''Life  of  Daniel  Boone,"  p.  123. 


144  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

Morse,  in  his  Report,  page  31,  states  that  "  South 
Carolina  had  twenty-eight  tribes  when  settled 
by  the  English,"  all  but  five  of  which,  he  re 
ports,  had  even  so  early  disappeared.  In  1880, 
it  had  131  Indians. 

Judge  Burnet  has  left  on  record  some  painful 
passages  in  reference  to  this  disappearance  of 
the  aborigines  :  "  In  journeying  more  recently 
through  the  State  the  writer  has  occasionally 
passed  over  the  ground  on  which,  many  years 
before,  he  had  seen  Indian  towns  filled  with  fam 
ilies  of  the  devoted  race,  contented  and  happy, 
but  he  could  not  perceive  the  slightest  trace  of 
those  villages,  or  the  people  who  had  occupied 
them."  4  The  Judge  details  a  thrilling  incident, 
and  a  picture  of  the  frontier.  In  1812,  a  tribe 
of  friendly  Indians  came  within  the  range  of 
the  settlements,  near  Urbana,  to  be  safe 
from  the  hostile  tribes.  Some  of  the  United 
States  army  stationed  there  laid  a  plan  to  mas 
sacre  them.  Simon  Kenton,  who  commanded 
the  regiment,  exhausted  his  pleas  to  restrain 
them,  but  in  vain.  He  then  said  that  he  would 
go  with  them,  and  called  on  them  to  proceed, 
arid,  taking  his  rifle,  he  added  that  he  would 
shoot  the  first  man  who  molested  an  Indian. 

4  "Notes  on  the  Early  Settlement  of  the  Northwest 
Territory."  By  Jacob  Burnet.  Cincinnati,  1847.  Tp. 
390-92. 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  145 

The  soldiers  did  not  proceed.1  Ohio  to-day  has 
130  Indians. 

Heimepin  says  that  when  he  first  visited  the 
Mississippi,  in  1680,  the  Osages  had  seventeen 
villages ;  the  Mahas  or  Oinahas,  twenty-two, 
the  least  of  which  contained  two  hundred 
cottages.  If  these  numbers  be  correct  there 
must  have  been  about  90,000  souls  in  them  all. 
Now,  says  one  authority,  publishing  in  1812, 
there  are  less  than  1500,  and  he  adds :  "  Many 
other  nations  were  equally  numerous."  2  Major 
Stoddard  was  the  first  United  States  Governor 
of  the  Upper  Louisiana,  taking  office  in  1804. 
The  "  Magazine  of  Western  History "  quotes 
a  Jesuit  father  in  Louisiana  as  saying  that 
about  the  year  1700  Illinois  had  10,000  Indians. 
Now  it  has  140.3  Probably  Dr.  Morse  was 
not  far  out  of  the  way  in  numbering  the 
Indians  east  of  the  Mississippi  in  1820  at 
120,000. 

One  old  Canadian  testimony  will  be  in  point 
here  :  "  They  have  receded  as  a  natural  con 
sequence  before  the  progress  of  industry.  .  .  . 
Unless  some  extra  means  be  interposed,  he 
gradually  fades  from  existence.  .  .  .  They  are 

1  Ibid.,  pp.  464-65. 

2  "Sketches  and  Description  of  Louisiana."     By  Major 
Araos  Stoddard.     Philadelphia,  ,1812.     Pp.  433-34. 

8  "  Magazine  of  Western  History,"  1885,  p.  268. 


146  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

a  degraded  race,  and  seem  rapidly  sinking  to 
extinction.  .  .  .  It  is  still  most  anxiously  to  be 
desired  that  such  may  become  our  future  con 
duct  towards  them  that  a  remnant  survive  to 
bless,  instead  of  cursing  the  day  when  Euro 
peans  arrived  to  settle  among  them."  1 

But  we  have  neither  time  nor  need  nor  heart 
to  trace  out  farther,  in  items,  this  decline  of 
the  Indian  tribes  east  of  the  Mississippi.  We 
have  followed  the  trail  of  the  120,846,  officially 
reported  in  1820,  till  they  have  wasted,  in  1880, 
to  17,679.  What  Dr.  Morse  saw  in  the  year 
preceding  drew  from  him  this  sad  lament: 
"  How  many  tribes,  once  numerous  and  respect 
able,  have  in  succession  perished  from  the  fair 
and  productive  territories  now  possessed  by  and 
giving  support  to  ten  millions  of  people  !  "  2  I 
cannot  refrain  from  adding  that  eloquent  pas 
sage  in  the  "  British  Spy,"  which,  if  very  ro 
mantic  and  poetic,  is  still  more  historic  :  — 

"  This  charming  country  belonged  to  the 
Indians ;  over  these  fields  and  through  these 
forests  their  beloved  forefathers,  once,  in  care 
less  gayety,  pursued  their  sports  and  hunted 
their  game.  Every  returning  day  found  them 
the  sole,  the  peaceful,  th§  happy  proprietors  of 

1  "  Emigrant's  Guide  to  Upper  Canada,"  etc.     C.  Stuart, 
Esq.     London,  1820.     Pp.  240-268. 

2  "  Report,"  Appendix,  p.  17. 


OF  THE   INDIAN  QUESTION.  147 

this  extensive  domain.  But  the  white  man 
came,  and  lo,  the  animated  chase,  the  feast,  the 
dance,  the  song  of  fearless,  thoughtless  joy, 
were  over.  Ever  since,  they  have  been  made 
to  drink  of  the  bitter  cup  of  humiliation  ; 
treated  like  dogs,  their  lives,  their  liberties,  the 
sport  of  the  white  man ;  their  country  and  the 
graves  of  their  fathers  torn  from  them  in  cruel 
succession,  until,  driven  from  river  to  river,  and 
from  forest  to  forest,  and  through  a  period  of 
two  hundred  years  rolled  back,  nation  upon 
nation,  they  find  themselves  fugitives,  vagrants 
and  strangers  in  their  own  country." 

Of  course  the  claim  by  natural  right  of  the 
aborigines  to  hold  these  immense  wilds  against 
utilization  in  cultivation  and  civilization  can 
not  be  conceded.  If  one  is  studiously  inclined 
on  this  point,  he  may  find  profitable  and  suffi 
cient  reading  in  Vattel,  section  209 ;  Kent's 
"  Commentaries  on  American  Law,"  volume  iii., 
and  Lecture  fifty-one ;  and  Wheaton's  "  Re 
ports,"  volume  viii.,  page  543  and  following. 

It  is  estimated  that  one  acre  in  corn  will  fur 
nish  a  food  supply  for  from  120  to  240  men  for 
a  year,  while  from  800,000  to  1,500,000  acres  of 
wild  and  game  land  would  be  necessary  to  do 
the  same.1  The  increase  of  the  human  family 

1  "  Pre-Historic  Races  of  the  United  States  of  America." 
By  J.  W.  Foster,  LL.  D.     1874.     Pp.  340,  347. 


148  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

and  its  elevation  in  what  constitutes  civiliza 
tion  cannot  be  expected  to  concede  to  an 
Indian  the  sovereign  control  and  use  of  6000 
acres  of  land  for  the  natural  production  of  wild 
animals,  that  he  may  live  on  game  suppers. 
Practically,  and  by  some  processes  in  jurispru 
dence,  the  case  becomes  a  new  one  and  the 
decision  is  reversed  when  the  party  is  a  white 
Englishman  or  American  instead  of  a  tawny 
aboriginal  American,  and  holds  from  ten  thou 
sand  to  half  a  million  of  acres. 


SECTION  3.  —  Examples  of  Decrease  beyond  the 
Mississippi. 

But  let  us  cross  over  the  Mississippi,  and 
there  take  up  again  the  trail  of  our  fugitive 
Indians — "our  wards"  —  as  they  strike  off 
into  the  West.  We  started,  sixty  years  ago,  to 
follow  425,766  of  them,  of  whom  we  have  found 
only  15,366  now  on  the  east  of  the  great  river. 
How  many  of  the  remainder  can  be  found  on 
the  west  of  it  ?  The  American  Board  of  Mis 
sions  has  this  remark  in  its  Report  for  1853  : 
"  It  is  not  strange  that  the  Indians  of  the 
United  States,  in  two  centuries,  have  lost  half 
their  number." 

We  never  have  had,  in  early  years  or  lately, 
such  an  enumeration  of  our  Indians  at  regu- 


OF   THE   INDIAN  QUESTION.  149 

larly  recurring  periods  as  will  enable  us  to 
speak  positively  of  their  increase  or  decrease  as 
a  whole.  Single  tribes  and  clusters  of  tribes 
have  furnished  a  basis  for  limited  comparison, 
if  we  are  allowed  to  use  official  and  unofficial 
estimates  in  a  mixed  way,  as  thus  :  - 

When  Marquette  opened  his  Mission  opposite 
"  Starved  Rock,"  Illinois,  in  1675,  "  500  chiefs 
and  old  men  sat  in  a  ring.  Behind  stood  more 
than  1500  youths  and  warriors,  and  behind  all 
these  the  women  and  children  of  the  town." 
About  four  years  later,  Hennepin  says  that  he 
counted  460  lodges  there,  and  others  made  the 
same  estimate."  1 

Mr.  Picotte  "informs  me  that  since  he  first 
knew  them,  in  1820,  the  Mandans,  Rees,  and 
Gros  Ventres  had  probably  lost  five  sixths  of 
their  number."  2  In  1858  the  Apaches  in  Ari 
zona  were  said  to  have  2000  warriors.3  On  a 
common  estimate  of  one  warrior  to  six  Indians, 
this  would  give  the  Apaches  in  that  territory 
12,000.  The  government  reports  9891  for  their 
total  in  Arizona,  New  Mexico,  and  the  Indian 
Territory,  in  1880. 

1  "  Mag.  West  His.,"  1885,  p.  315. 

2  Cuthbertson's  "  Expedition  to  the  Mauvaises  Terres," 
1850,  Fifth  An.  Rep.  Smithsonian  Institution,  March,  1851, 
p.  119. 

3  "  Arizona  and  Sonora."     By  Sylvester  Mo  wry,  delegate 
to  Congress.     1864.     Pp.  32,  33. 


150  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

"  Some  sixty  years  ago,  after  an  inquiry  into 
the  state  of  the  Illinois  Indians,  it  was  thought 
they  numbered  10,000  souls.  I  am  of  the  opin 
ion  that  to-day  there  are  scarcely  more  than 
800  or  900. 1  Association  with  the  French  des 
troys  them."  l 

In  1845  Elijah  White,  Indian  Agent  for 
Oregon  Territory,  reported  there  "about  42,000 
Indians."  That  territory  embraced  the  Ore 
gon,  Washington,  and  Idaho  of  to-day,  and  all 
north  up  to  54°  40'.  As  only  "civilized" 
Indians  are  entered  in  the  census  of  1880,  and 
the  agencies  report  only  what  are  connected 
with  them,  a  comparison  with  reference  to  in 
crease  or  decrease  can  be  only  suggestive  and 
approximate.  For  so  much  of  the  original 
Oregon  as  now  lies  within  the  United  States, 
the  Indian  Commissioner's  Report  for  1880 
gives  16,356.  Of  these,  1550  are  reckoned  as 
not  under  an  agent.  The  number  of  the  un 
civilized  is  not  given  ;  and  allowing  for  these 
and  for  any  north  of  49°  in  Mr.  White's  re 
port,  the  difference  is  still  very  great  between 
his  estimate  in  1845,  of  42,000,  and  the  reported 
number  of  16,356  in  1880.  The  statements  fol 
lowing  of  two  agents  are  stimulating  to  reflec 
tions  on  this  difference.  The  agent  for  the 

1  John  Watson,  "  Jesuit  in  Louisana."  1764-5.  "Mag. 
West.  His.,"  1884,  p.  120. 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  151 

Grand  Rondo*  Agency,  Oregon,  says  :  "  The  In 
dians  composing  the  inhabitants  of  the  agency 
are  remnants  of  the  numerous  and  once  power 
ful  tribes  occupying  the  Willamette  and  Rogue 
River  Valleys  in  this  State."  This  agency  has 
869  Indians,  the  remnant  of  seventeen  tribes. 
The  agent  of  the  Siletz  agency,  Oregon,  re 
ports  :  "  The  Indians  occupying  this  extent  of 
country  number  about  1100,  and  are  composed 
of  the  remnants  of  fifteen  different  tribes." 

We  obtain  a  glance  at  the  large  body  of 
Indians  in  Oregon  in  those  early  days  by  read 
ing  a  passage  like  this :  "  Half  a  century  ago 
they  came  by  thousands,  and  the  desolate 
shores  were  alive  with  them.  .  .  .  Now,  only  a 
few  score  Indians  come  to  remind  the  whites 
that  a  remnant  of  the  race  still  lives/'  The 
author  is  speaking  of  the  salmon  fisheries  on 
the  Columbia,  at  the  Dalles."  1 

In  1840  five  missionaries,  with  associates, — 
thirty-six  adults  and  seventeen  children,  — 
arrived  in  Oregon  to  enlarge  the  Methodist 
Mission.  "  Not  long  after  the  arrival  of  this 
last  reinforcement,  affairs  began  to  grow  more 
discouraging.  The  Mission  school  near  Salem 
dwindled  to  almost  nothing.  ...  A  tour  was 
made  in  the  Umpqua  Valley,  where  they 

1  "  Guide  to  the  Northern  Pacific  liailroad."  By  Henry 
I.  Winser.  1880.  P.  233. 


152  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

preached  to  the  Indians,  on  many  occasions, 
but  concluded  that  it  was  not  wise  to  open  a 
mission  there,  partly  owing  to  the  rapidity  with 
which  the  Indians  seemed  to  be  wasting  away. 
The  station  on  Puget  Sound  was  so  unsuccess 
ful  that  it  was  abandoned."  The  superintend 
ent  was  superseded,  but  Mr.  Hines,  one  of  the 
authors  on  Oregon,  defends  the  Mission  and 
Mr.  Lee  by  saying  that  "  the  Indian  population 
had  been  wasting  away  like  the  dews  of  the 
morning."  1 

Commander  Wilkes  noted  the  same  decrease 
of  Indians  in  Oregon  in  1841.  "  We  hoped  to 
get  sight  of  the  Indians  of  the  Methodist  Mis 
sion,  whom  they  were  teaching,  but  saw  only 
four  servants.  We  were  told,  however,  that 
there  was  a  school  of  twenty  or  twenty-five 
scholars  ten  miles  away.  In  a  few  days  we 
visited  the  mill  where  the  school  was  situated, 
but  were  told  that  it  was  not  in  a  condition  to 
be  visited."  "  During  my  stay  at  Vancouver  I 
frequently  met  Casenove,  the  chief  of  the  Klac- 
katack  tribe.  .  .  .  He  was  once  lord  of  all 
this  domain,  .  .  .  and  within  the  last  fifteen 
years  his  village  was  quite  prosperous ;  he 
could  muster  four  or  five  hundred  warriors; 
but  the  ague  and  fever  have,  within  a  short 

-  "  History  of  Indian  Missions  on  the  Pacific  Coast,  Ore 
gon,"  etc.  By  ]£ev.  Myron  Eells.  1882.  Pp.  22-24. 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  153 

space  of  time,  swept  off  the  whole  tribe,  and  it 
is  said  they  all  died  within  three  weeks.  He 
now  stands  alone,  his  land,  tribe,  and  property 
all  departed,  and  he  a  dependent  on  the  bounty 
of  the  Company  (Hudson's  Bay  Company). 
Casenove  is  about  fifty  years  of  age,  and  u 
noble  and  intelligent-looking  Indian.  At  the 
fort  he  is  always  welcome,  and  is  furnished 
with  a  plate  at  meal-times  at  the  side-table.  .  .  . 
He  scarce  seemed  to  attract  the  notice  of  any 
one,  but  ate  his  meal  in  silence  and  retired.  .  .  . 
Casenove's  tribe  is  not  the  only  one  that  has 
suffered  in  this  way ;  many  others  have  been 
swept  off  entirely  by  this  fatal  disease,  without 
leaving  a  single  survivor  to  tell  their  melan 
choly  tale."  l 

Campbell,  in  his  "  Northwest  Boundary," 
page  133,  makes  this  statement  in  the  same 
line :  "  The  whole  inside  of  the  north 
eastern  part  of  San  Juan  formerly  belonged  to 
a  tribe  kindred  to  the  Lummies,  and  now 
extinct."  And  the  following  is  of  the  same 
import,  only  more  comprehensive :  "  The  race, 
as  such,  is  doomed  to  extinction  in  Oregon."  : 

1  "Narrative  of  the   United  States  Exploring  Expedi 
tion."      By  Charles   Wilkes,  Commander  of  the    Expedi 
tion.     Philadelphia,  1845.     Vol.  iv.,  pp.  352,  369-370. 

2  "  Oregon  and  Her  Resources."    By  Hugh  Small.    1872. 
P.  14. 


154  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

Still  another  and  more  recent  author  shows  the 
whole  by  sample :  "  One  Sunday  I  was  at  the 
Siletz  Agency,  and,  hearing  the  church-bell 
calling  to  service,  went  in.  .  .  .  There  was  a 
great  variety  of  type  apparent,  for  the  remnants 
of  thirteen  tribes  of  the  Coast  and  Klamath  and 
Rogue  River  Indians  are  collected  on  this  re 
servation."  : 

In  his  "  Sketches  of  Louisiana,"  page  206, 
Stoddard  says  that  in  the  early  days  of  white 
settlements  among  them  "  the  Arkansas  nation 
of  Indians  was  deemed  one  of  the  most  power 
ful  in  the  country,  and  the  French,  to  preserve 
peace  with  them,  and  to  secure  their  trade, 
intermarried  with  them,  .  .  .  who  are  now 
reduced  to  a  very  few  in  number,  and  live 
in  two  small  villages."  That  was  early  in 
this  century.  Now  the  very  name  is  lost  to 
any  living  Indian,  and  is  preserved  in  a  State 
which  contains  one  hundred  and  ninety-five 
Indians. 


SECTION  4.  —  Some  Personal  Investigations. 

Three  months  in  the  autumn  of  1885  were 
spent  by  the  author  between  ihe  Missouri  and 
the  Pacific,  and  with  a  leading  purpose  to 

1  "  Two  Years  in  Oregon."  By  Wallis  Nash.  1882.  P. 
139. 


OF   THE  INDIAN   QUESTION.  155 

study  our  mixed  Indian  and  American  life 
in  that  region.  The  freedom  of  the  private 
travelling  citizen,  and  exemption  from  all 
official  relations  which  might  bias  him  or 
expose  him  to  any  personal  aims  of  his  in 
formants,  afforded  some  exceptionally  good 
opportunities  for  seeing  the  inside  of  the 
•'Indian  question."  An  office-holder  among 
the  Indians  or  an  office-seeker,  a  border  land- 
speculator  or  an  Indian  agent,  secular  or 
sacred,  will  appreciate  this  statement.  The 
principal  informant,  intelligent  and  candid, 
had  spent  more  than  thirty  years  west  of 
the  Missouri  and  between  our  northern  boun 
dary  and  Mexico,  had  been  the  most  of  this 
time  in  the  employ  of  the  government,  and 
spoke  four  Indian  languages.  Questions  were 
put  and  the  answers  written  out  at  the  time. 
"The  Gos-Ute,"  he  said,  in  answer  to  the 
question  whether  the  Indians  are  increasing 
or  decreasing,  "  was  once  a  very  numerous 
tribe  on  the  deserts  of  Western  Utah  and 
Eastern  Nevada,  now  nearly  extinct,  —  less 
than  400.  In  1860,  when  I  guided  Lieutenant 
Weed's  command,  Battery  B,  Fourth  Artillery, 
in  Eastern  Nevada,  we  estimated  them  at 
1200."  "  Possibly  the  Utes  hold  their  own 
numbers,  but  not  any  other  tribe,  and  I 
have  ranged,  since  1853,  from  the  British 


156  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

border  to  Arizona,  and  on  the  East  from 
the  divide  to  the  Pacific."  "  The  Indians 
must  go.  They  are  dying  out.  The  Nava- 
hoes  have  the  military  and  missionaries,  Catho 
lic  and  Protestant.  But  the  soldiery  will  have 
access  to  the  reservation.  The  officers  and 
missionaries  cannot  prevent  it,  and  the  tribe 
is  being  consumed  with  imported  diseases. 
The  Arapahoes  are  another  case."  Of  these 
the  Report  for  1880  shows  about  4000,  of 
whom  712  are  tabulated  in  the  column  of 
venereal  diseases.  "In  1858-1869  it  was 
difficult  to  find  an  unchaste  Ute  or  Snake 
woman.  After  they  went  on  the  reservation 
virtue  was  destroyed  by  the  soldiers.  I  doubt 
if  one  virtuous  woman  can  now  be  found 
among  them.  Liquor  can  be  had  freely  on 
the  reservation.  It  caused  the  Ute  massacre 
of  Meeker  and  of  Jackson,  the  teamster.  .  .  . 
From  the  corruption  of  the  whites  the  Navahoe 
tribe  is  now  one  vast  pest-house."  "  The  tribes 
are  ruined  beyond  all  chance  of  hope  by  the 
soldiers  and  cow-boys  and  ranchers.  The 
officers  generally  are  gentlemen,  and  hold 
themselves  above  corrupting  influences  over 
the  Indians,  but  the  soldiers  are  of  the  lowest 
grade  originally,  and  are  simply  dreadful. 
You  can  have  no  conception  of  their  out 
rageous  conduct."  "  Can  we  in  any  way 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  157 

save  any  tribe  from  extinction?*'  "Only 
by  keeping  from  them  the  white  influences 
which  are  now  destroying  them."  "  Would 
a  fair  Ohio  neighborhood  around  save  them?" 
"  Yes,  beyond  a  doubt ;  and  yet  I  do  not  know 
but  these  imported  vices  have  too  strong  and 
destroying  a  hold  to  be  stopped." 

The  testimony  just  quoted  covers,  it  will 
be  noticed,  quite  an  area,  and  quite  a  number 
of  years.  It  agrees  well  with  what  Commis 
sioner  Walker  says  in  his  "  Indian  Question," 
page  152  :  "  The  Indian  tribes  of  the  continent, 
with  few  exceptions,  have  been  steadily  de 
creasing  in  numbers." 

An  illustration  to  the  same  effect  from 
Vancouver  Island  is  in  point :  "  It  is  pain 
ful  to  know,  as  I  do  from  frequent  inquiry 
of  Indians  in  Victoria  streets,  how  very  few  of 
them  outlive  infancy."  l 


SECTION   5.  —  Increase    or   Decrease    in    Cali 
fornia. 

In  this  historical  disquisition  on  the  increase 
and  decrease  of  the  American  Indians,  those  of 
California  have  been  reserved  for  a  separate 
consideration,  for  several  reasons.  California 
had,  from  the  earliest  days  of  Europeans  there, 
1  "Daily  Chronicle,"  Victoria,  Nov.  2,  1886. 


158  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

the  fair  experiment  of  the  Church  and  State 
policy  combined  to  open  up  a  new  country. 
The  Roman  Catholic  Mission  had  there,  in 
its  twenty-one  "  Missions,"  a  fair  and  unmo 
lested  show  of  its  theory,  running  through 
more  than  sixty  years.  An  American  border 
life  among  Indians  had  there  an  exceptionally 
good  illustration  in  the  extent  of  its  range  — 
having  the  combined  areas  of  New  England, 
New  York,  Pennsylvania,  and  Ohio.  Nowhere 
besides,  in  our  domain,  has  there  been  such 
a  mixture  of  Indian,  mining,  and  ranching 
life  —  each  a  very  positive  element  in  the  oper 
ation  of  a  civil  and  Christian  State. 

Therefore  a  better  field  than  California  could 
not  be  found  in  which  to  study  the  civilization, 
Christianization,  and  perpetuity  of  American 
Indians. 

The  Franciscans  planted  Missions  among  the 
Indians  on  the  coast  between  San  Diego  and 
San  Francisco.  There  were  finally  twenty-one 
of  these  Missions,  in  a  shore  belt  about  500  by 
40  miles,  and  so  far  adjoining  as  to  rule  out 
settlers  between.  The  first  was  established  in 
1769  and  the  last  in  1823,  and  the  Padres  were 
both  lords  spiritual  and  temporal.  They  so  far 
Christianized  and  domesticated  the  natives  as 
to  reckon  18,683  as  connected  with  the  Mis 
sions.  These  were  all  servants,  and  worked  for 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  159 

a  living  merely,  not  accumulating  property  in 
their  own  right.  By  this  policy  the  Fathers 
became  immensely  wealthy.  In  1825  the  Mis 
sion  at  San  Francisco  owned  76,000  head  of 
cattle,  3000  horses,  79,000  sheep,  and  other 
ranch  interests  in  proportion.  Their  white  and 
red  wines  obtained  high  repute  in  the  East, 
the  Mission  of  San  Gabriel  producing  annually 
from  four  hundred  to  six  hundred  barrels. 
The  civil,  social,  and  "  Christian  "  condition  of 
the  native  converts  may  be  seen  in  one  passage 
from  Cronise :  — 

"  Both  men  and  women  were  required  to 
work  in  the  fields  every  day,  except  those  who 
were  carpenters,  blacksmiths,  or  weavers. 
None  of  them  were  taught  to  read  or  write 
except  a  few  who  were  selected  to  form  a  choir, 
to  sing  and  play  music,  for  each  Mission.  The 
only  instruments  were  the  violin  and  guitar. 
They  never  received  any  payment  for  their 
labor,  except  food  and  clothing,  and  instruc 
tions  in  the  catechism.  The  single  men  and 
women  were  locked  up  in  separate  buildings 
every  night.  Both  sexes  were  severely  pun 
ished  with  the  whip  if  they  did  not  obey  the 
missionaries,  or  other  white  men  in  authorit}'. 
.  .  .  Both  men  and  women  were  flogged  or  put 
into  the  stocks,  if  they  refused  to  believe  or  to 
labor.  .  .  .  Eminent  men  of  science  from  Eng- 


160  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

land,  France,  Russia,  and  the  United  States 
who  visited  the  coast,  and  saw  the  unfortunate 
natives  under  the  Mission  regime,  in  its  palmi 
est  days,  all  bear  witness  to  the  wretched  state 
of  bodily  and  mental  bondage  in  which  they 
were  held."  1 

So  in  Mexico,  the  converted  Indians  were 
reduced  to  slavery  on  the  land  and  in  the 
mines.2  Of  the  vast  interior  of  the  country 
and  the  great  majority  of  pagan  natives  the 
"  Missions "  took  no  account.  It  does  not 
appear  that  they  explored  to  see  whether  the 
lands  or  the  natives,  far  inland,  were  worth 
attention.  When  the  Convention  at  Monterey, 
in  1849,  was  discussing  the  question  where  the 
eastern  boundary  of  the  young  State  should  be, 
they  were  bewildered,  as  in  an  unknown  land. 
One  proposed  a  line  that  would  have  included 
one  half  of  Nevada ;  another,  the  whole  of 
Nevada  and  a  large  part  of  Utah;  and  yet 
another,  all^of  Nevada  and  Utah,  the  most  of 
Colorado,  and  portions  of  Nebraska.  Indeed, 
the  vastness,  the  amplitude  of  American  geog 
raphy  has  always  been  confusing  to  both 
citizens  and  foreigners.  The  home  govern 
ment  of  old  Spain  made  liberal  grants  for  these 

luThe  Natural  Wealth  of  California."     By  Titus  Fye 
Cronise.     San  Francisco,  1868.     Pp.  25,  26. 
2  "  Am.  Eucyc.,"  1875.     Mexico,  p.  476. 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  161 

Missions,  as  settlements  to  develop  the  country 
as  a  part  of  the  Spanish  Empire,  and  the 
Catholics  patronized  them  generously  for  the 
extension  of  the  Church.  Yet  the  soldiers  and 
colonists  sent  there  by  the  government  were 
often  ruffians  and  renegades,  transported  for 
crimes  at  home.  Such  was  the  Spanish  theory 
of  the  civilization  and  Christianization  of  the 
Indians  as  practised  in  California. 

In  1821  Mexico  assumed  independence  under 
Iturbide.  It  became  more  and  more  evident 
that  the  policy  of  California  was  a  failure  for 
either  civil  or  religious  purpose,  and  in  1826 
the  Missions  began  to  be  broken  up  by  govern 
ment,  and  the  vast  wealth  in  them  confiscated 
to  the  young  republic.  This  was  completed 
by  statute  in  1833,  when  the  Mexican  Con 
gress  abolished  the  Missions,  removed  the  mis 
sionaries,  and  divided  the  cattle,  lands,  and 
remnants  of  property  among  the  natives  and 
the  settlers.  Santa  Anna,  coming  then  into 
power,  broke  the  full  force  of  this  decree,  yet 
their  power  waned ;  the  successive  insurrec 
tions,  or  changes  in  parties,  despoiled  them, 
and  in  1845  government  sold  the  last  of  the 
"  Missions  "  at  auction.  The  domesticated  Ind 
ians  suffered  severely  from  these  changes. 
They  had  been  educated  for  servitude  and  not 
citizenship,  and  their  conversion  to  Chris- 


162  TilfE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

tianity  had  been  ceremonial  rather  than  vital, 
and  they  had  received  no  training  in  civiliza 
tion  above  the  wants  of  their  menial  life.  Their 
relapse,  therefore,  was  not  only  inevitable,  but 
they  became  more  of  an  obstacle  to  the  future 
settlement  and  development  of  the  country 
than  the  wild  Indians  themselves.  Indeed, 
they  stood  in  the  way  of  civilizing  the  uncivil 
ized  Indians,  for  they  had  only  so  far  left  the 
savage  state  as  to  adopt  the  vices  of  their  half- 
civilized  masters.  They  had  lost  the  virtues  of 
their  wild  life,  but  had  not  attained  to  those  of 
civilized  life,  and  would  class  with  that  refuse 
of  whites  on  our  frontiers  who  are  the  princi 
pal  obstacle  to  the  elevation  of  the  Indians. 

Of  these  "  Mission "  Indians,  as  has  been 
stated,  there  were  finally  18,683.  The  last  of 
these  establishments  was  constituted  in  1823, 
in  which  year  the  first  official  census  was  taken 
of  the  Indian  race  in  California.  The  number 
reported  was  100,826.  That  was  about  sixty 
years  ago,  and  by  latest  official  reports  that 
number  has  fallen  to  16,277  (1880).  The 
estimates  of  the  number  of  Indians  in  the  coun 
try,  prior  to  any  tolerable  census,  must  be  taken 
with  grave  distrust.  Schoicraft  put  their  num 
ber  at  1,000,000,  when  America  was  discovered, 
while  Catlin's  estimate  was  14,000,000. 


OF   THE   INDIAN    QUESTION.  163 

SECTION  6.  —  The  G-overnment  Census  quite  Im 
perfect,  yet  Shoivs  much  Decrease. 

The  facts  now  given,  miscellaneous  of 
necessity,  only  partially  official,  and  as  compre 
hensive  as  data  at  hand  would  allow,  point  dis 
tinctly  to  an  apparent  decrease  in  the  number 
of  the  American  Indians.  Of  course  results  of 
this  investigation  can  be  stated  only  approxi 
mately,  since  the  government  tables  contain 
many  blanks,  and  when  rilled  they  frequently 
have  the  foot-notes :  "  from  report  of  last 
year  "  ;  "  estimated  "  ;  "  partially  reported  "  ; 
"  an  under-estimate,  many  tribes  not  being  re 
ported."  While  the  twenty-six  columns  in  the 
usual  table  are  generally  filled,  except  when  ob 
viously  there  was  nothing  to  be  inserted,  as 
boarding-schools,  or  missionaries,  or  donations, 
only  twenty-eight  per  cent,  of  the  blanks  for 
births  and  deaths  are  filled.  Every  tribe  fur 
nishes  material  for  these  blanks,  and  their 
vacancy  is  a  serious  hindrance  to  this  investi 
gation.  In  the  reports  for  ten  years,  ending 
with  1884,  there  are  2585  blanks  for  the  entry 
of  the  population,  etc.,  yet  only  729  of  these 
contain  the  figures  of  births  and  deaths.  We 
have,  therefore,  only  twenty-eight  per  cent,  of 
the  material  or  conditions  for  working  the  prob 
lem  in  hand.  With  these  very  imperfect  re- 


164  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

turns,  the  average  annual  return  for  ten  years* 
ending  with  1884,  is  518  births  in  excess  of 
deaths. 

One  of  the  Indian  Commissioners  throws  a 
farther  perplexity  over  the  tables  on  which  we 
would  like  to  rely  on  the  question  of  increase 
or  decrease.  Mr.  Walker  mentions  an  increase 
in  certain  tribes,  and  then  says:  "An  increase 
of  402  over  the  number  reported  for  1871 ;  due, 
however,  perhaps  as  much  to  the  return  of 
absent  Indians  as  to  the  excess  of  births  over 
deaths."  i 

Only  "  civilized "  Indians  are  officially  re 
ported,  which  fact  may  have  left  some  to  a 
hopeful  delusion  as  to  increase.  For  example, 
the  total  reported  increase  for  1881  over  1880 
was  5913 ;  but  the  increase  by  births  over 
deaths  was  only  350.  Whence  the  additional 
increase  of  5563  ?  It  is  an  increase  of  "  civil 
ized,"  not  of  new-born  Indians  —  an  annex  of 
so  many  from  the  wild  Indians.  Dropping  the 
blanket  for  the  pantaloons  does  not  add  to  the 
"  wards  of  the  nation  "  ;  it  is  merely  a  change 
in  wardrobe,  and  very  slight  indeed  at  that. 
Thus,  in  1882,  the  number  falls  off  2219  from 
the  preceding  year,  not  perhaps  a  decrease  by 
death  so  much  as  by  a  relapse  into  the  "unciv 
ilized  "  class. 

1  "  The  Indian  Question,''  p.  155. 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  165 

A  wider  range  among  the  figures  may  serve 
still  farther  to  remove  this  delusion,  for  an  ob 
scurity  covers  them,  tending  to  skepticism  on 
what  we  would  like  to  say,  that  the  Indians  are 
on  the  increase.  The  Report  of  the  Commis 
sioner  for  1874  gives  their  number  as  275,003, 
but  the  Report  for  1882  gives  it  as  259,632. 
Here  is  a  loss  of  our  Indian  total  in  eight  years 
of  15,371. 

We  have  elsewhere  quoted  a  government 
Report  for  1820,  showing  that  the  "Five 
Nations,"  or  five  civilized  tribes  in  the  Indian 
Territory,  then  numbered  72,010.  The  Report 
for  1880 — sixty  years  later  —  shows  that  they 
had  decreased  to  59,187,  —  a  loss  of  12,823.  It 
should  be  here  added  that  those  live  tribes  have 
been  the  favorites  of  the  government  and  of 
our  educating  and  missionary  societies. 

And  if  one  is  still  more  critical  over  some  of 
these  figures,  he  may  become  more  skeptical  as 
to  their  accuracy.  The  increase  in  the  "  Five 
Nations  "  for  eight  years,  ending  with  1882,  is 
5381.  As  it  does  not  appear  that  any  wild 
Indians  have  been  added,  during  this  time,  to 
the  number  of  those  five  tribes,  this  increase 
must  be  the  excess  of  births  over  deaths.  But 
the  excess  of  births  over  deaths  among  all  our 
Indians  for  those  eight  years  was  only  4560  — 
821  less  than  the  number  assigned  by  the  Re- 


166  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

ports  to  the  Five  Nations  alone.  No  doubt  the 
per  cent,  of  natural  increase  should  be  greater 
among  those  favored  tribes  than  among  any 
others,  for  they  have  enjoyed  an  actual 
"  reservation  "  for  sixty  years  or  so,  and  have 
been  able  to  establish  a  family  life.  Under 
their  present  liabilities  and  anxieties  as  to  a 
new  civil  status  and  separation  and  wanderings, 
this  natural  increase  must  not  be  expected  to 
keep  up  its  average.  It  is  unfortunate  that  we 
have  not  complete  and  reliable  vital  statistics 
of  these  five  favored  tribes,  that  we  might 
know  what  the  State  and  the  Church  have  ac 
complished,  and  may  reasonably  undertake. 

SECTION  7.  —  Some  unpleasant  Conclusions. 

It  was  the  purpose,  in  this  paper,  to  prepare 
a  disquisition  and  not  an  argument.  The  fig 
ures  and  quoted  statements  from  authors  named 
are,  therefore,  left  to  work  their  own  way,  with 
what  force  they  may  inherently  have,  without 
offered  inferences  or  rhetorical  enforcement. 

We  started  with  the  government  Report  of 
Dr.  Morse,  giving  the  number  of  American 
Indians  in  1820  as  425,7G£.  We  have  added 
to  those,  on  the  Mexican  census  of  1823,  the 
number  of  100,826,  which  body,  more  or  less, 
and  increased  or  decreased,  we  took  into  the 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  167 

American  Union,  with  California,  in  1848. 
These  two  sums  make  526,592  Indians  within 
the  present  territory  of  the  United  States, 
Alaska  excepted,  and  are  to  be  now  accounted 
for.  We  have  cited  authors  to  show  their 
abundance  at  times  and  in  sections ;  also  to 
show  the  wasting  and  even  total  disappearance 
of  powerful  tribes,  and  the  reduction  of  others 
to  feeble  and  petty  remnants,  till  a  half  score 
of  old  tribes  made  only  a  handful  for  an  agency. 
We  have  called  attention  to  deficient,  and  some 
times  discrepant,  tabulations. 

A  few  totals  for  a  few  years  from  official  and 
annual  reports  on  the  Indians  may  well  close 
this  chapter.  The  earliest  at  hand  is  for  1866, 
when  their  number  was  295,774  ;  in  1868  it  was 
298,528.  In  1872  their  number  reached  the 
maximum  in  official  returns,  when  it  is  put 
•'  about  300,000."  Five  years  later,  1877,  they 
fell  to  their  minimum  reported  number,  which 
was  250,864.  Six  years  afterward,  1883,  the 
number  had  risen  to  265,565,  but  the  next  year, 
1884,  fell  off  to  264,369,— a  loss  of  1196.  It 
will  be  noticed  that  since  1866  the  Indians  have 
decreased  31,405.  If  we  go  back  to  1823,  and 
take  the  aggregate  numbers  of  the  United  States 
and  of  California  —  526,592  —  it  will  be  seen 
that  their  decrease  since  1823  has  been  262,223. 
*  It  may  be  well  said  that  the  numbers  of  long 


168  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

ago  were  a  crude  estimate,  and  that  losses  com 
puted  on  them  will  need  a  wide  margin  for 
variation.  This  cannot  be  said  of  the  regular 
government  returns  of  the  last  eighteen  years, 
during  which  the  average  annual  loss  has  been 
1744. 

As  has  been  already  stated,  in  the  Indian 
census  only  the  "  civilized  "  or  "partially  civil 
ized"  are  enumerated  and  reported.  All  others 
are  un reported,  and  are  reckoned  only  by  esti 
mation.  The  only  guide  offered  by  the  Com 
missioners,  as  to  the  number  of  the  uncivilized 
and  unreported,  is  that  the  reported  are  about 
five  sixths  of  the  whole  number. 

According  to  the  official  reports  of  the  last 
eighteen  years  the  average  decrease  of  the  "  civ 
ilized  "  or  "  partially  civilized  "  has  been  some 
thing  less  than  2000  a  year.  One  of  highest 
authority  on  this  subject,  within  government 
circles,  informs  the  author  that  our  Indian  sta 
tistics  are  very  far  from  reliable.  There  are 
many  and  obvious  reasons  for  this,  and  some 
special  ones  for  making  the  statement  of  their 
numbers  in  excess  of  fact.  Neither  the  State 
nor  the  Church  can  readily  consent  to  the  criti 
cism  that  the  aboriginal  raua  is  diminishing  un 
der  their  mutual  care,  and  the  error  in  the 
statistics  is  most  likely  to  be  in  making  the 
number  too  high.  Be  that  as  it  may,  as  the 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  169 

official  reports  show  that  there  has  been  a 
steady  decrease  for  many  years  in  the  total 
of  the  civilized,  the  increase,  if  there  has  been 
any,  must  have  been  among  the  uncivilized. 
It  will  be  a  most  unwelcome  and  reproachful 
inference,  if  forced  on  ns,  that  only  wild  Ind 
ians  can  increase  by  birth  in  the  United  States, 
while  civilization,  as  we  apply  it  to  them,  of 
make  a  show  of  it  ourselves,  on  our  white  bor 
ders,  is  gradually  wasting  them  away,  or  is  prov 
ing  incompetent  to  save  them  from  extinction. 
And  yet  another  point.  It  appears  that  the 
"civilized"  or  "partially  civilized"  Indians,  tab 
ulated  in  the  census,  are  decreasing  at  the  aver 
age  rate  of  about  2000  a  year.  If,  therefore,  there 
is  an  increase  in  the  total  of  the  aborigines 
within  our  borders,  it  must  be  among  the  un 
civilized,  who  are  not  reckoned  in  the  census. 
By  estimation,  this  unknown  quantity  is  put  at 
about  one  sixth  of  the  whole,  that  is,  about 
50,000,  as  the  reported  total  for  1885  is  259,244. 
Thus,  to  make  the  increase  claimed,  this  50,000 
of  wild  Indians  must  first  gain  enough  to  make 
up  the  loss  of  2000  a  year  in  the  civilized 
259,244,  and  enough  more  to  enable  us  to  say 
that  the  American  Indians,  in  their  totality,  are 
on  the  increase.  It  is  an  impossible  supposi 
tion  that  50,000  wild  Indians  are  doing  this, 
while  five  times  as  many  civilized  ones  cannot 
hold  their  own. 


170 


SECTION  8.  —  English  Partnership  in  the  Indian 

Decrease. 

As  some  relief  to  American  dishonor,  offer 
ing  mitigation  without  comfort,  it  must  be 
added  that  the  English  are  partners,  to  an  ex 
tent,  in  the  reproach  of  Indian  decrease.  After 
the  treaty  of  1783,  and  in  violation  of  it,  they 
continued  to  hold,  and  for  more  than  ten  years, 
several  north-western  posts  within  the  American 
lines,  and  used  them  as  centres  for  stimulating, 
and  honoring,  and  compensating  the  Indians  to 
make  war  on  the. settlements.  Following  1783, 
"  the  whole  Indian  war  had  been  the  result  of 
intrigue  between  agents  and  emissaries  from  the 
British  posts  along  the  Canada  frontier,  whose 
avowed  object  was  to  check  the  advance  of  pop 
ulation  northwest  of  the  Ohio."  Under  their 
instigation  and  patronage  Tecumseh  visited  the 
southern  Indians,  and  for  the  second  time  in 
1812,  and  made  "common  cause  with  the  Eng 
lish  in  the  extermination  of  the  frontier  settle 
ments  of  Georgia  and  Tennessee,  with  those  of 
the  Mississippi  Territory."  2 

"  British  officers  and  emissaries  had  been  ac 
tively  engaged  in  arousing  the  Indians  of  Flor 
ida  to  renewed  hostilities,"  and  Colonel  Nichols 

1  Monette  "His.  Miss.  Valley,"  ii.,  203.     *  Ibid.,  395. 


OF   THE   LND1AJS    QUESTION.  171 

of  the  British  squadron,  at  Pensacola,  offered 
the  Indians  ten  dollars  for  every  white  scalp.1 

So  such  merchandise  was  put  on  the  sched 
ules  of  commerce  —  the  silver-gray  of  age,  the 
flowing  tresses  of  maidenhood,  and  the  flossy, 
downy  covering  of  infant  heads.  In  his  mes 
sage  of  November,  1812,  Madison  says:  "The 
enemy  has  not  scrupled  to  call  to  his  aid  the 
ruthless  ferocity  of  the  savages,  armed  with  in 
struments  of  carnage  and  torture,  which  are 
known  to  spare  neither  age  nor  sex." 

Of  course,  Indians  by  the  thousand,  and 
even  whole  tribes,  stimulated  thus  by  bawbles, 
whiskey,  and  promises  to  throw  down  the 
gauntlet  of  war,  perished  miserably. 


SECTION  9.  —  Has  American    Christianity  done 
its  best  to  Preserve  the  Indian  ? 

"  While  Protestants  have  slumbered ;  while 
the  wealthy  and  powerful  church  of  our  own 
establishment  (Church  of  England)  hath  been 
inert ;  while  missionaries,  reared  and  supported 
by  British  piety  and  by  British  generosity,  have 
labored  and  died  in  other  countries,  the  poor 
Indian  of  North  America,  a  cast-off  savage  peo 
ple,  the  most  interesting  perhaps  in  the  world, 
have  been  left  in  the  gall  of  our  common  na- 
1  ibid.,  428-9. 


172  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

ture,  or  abandoned  to  the  efforts  of  a  sect  — 
Catholics.  .  .  .  Can  we  not  find  amongst  our 
millions  another  Brainerd?  Or  have  we  no 
souls  but  for  the  comparatively  easier  toils  of 
Eastern  missions  ?  "  1 

In  the  wasting  and  disappearing  of  these  an 
cient  and  primeval  races,  we  cannot  too  much 
admire  the  benevolence  and  the  Christian  ten 
derness  which  are  comforting  their  last  days 
and  smoothing  their  trail  into  the  twilight.  It 
is  the  present  highest  attainment  of  our  civili 
zation  to  watch  and  comfort  the  dying,  till 
death  come,  no  matter  how  imbecile  or  useless 
or  degraded  the  departing  may  be.  But  if  our 
civilization  has  done  its  best,  while  it  appropri 
ates  their  lands,  and  vitiates  their  blood  till  it 
ceases  to  flow,  and  spares  only  geographical 
names  as  memorials,  some  of  -its  praise  must  be 
abated.  The  civilization  which  cannot  make 
citizens  out  of  Indians,  or  the  religion  which 
cannot  make  Christians  out  of  the  aborigines, 
must  become  modest  in  its  pretensions  ;  and, 
reasoning  from  our  American  experiment  on 
home  heathen,  it  may  become  a  question  how  far 
we  can  make  a  success  in  those  lines  among  the 
inferior  in  foreign  lands.  K.American  Christi 
anity  and  American  civilization  can  do  their 

1  "  Emigrant's  Guide  to  Upper  Canada,"  etc.   By  C.  Stu 
art,  Esq.     London,  1820.     Pp.  258,  259. 


OF   THE   INDIAN  QUESTION.  173 

best  only  by  easing  and  gracing  the  extinction 
of  the  East  Indian,  and  Turk,  and  Hawaiian, 
preparatory  to  the  supremacy  of  an  English- 
speaking  people  over  their  ancestral  domains, 
the  theory  of  Christian  missions  exposes  itself 
to  grave  criticism. 

In  this  home  work  and  threatened  failure, 
nothing  can  be  charged  off  on  the  government 
as  a  force  separate  from  the  people.  For  all 
practical  purposes  they  are  one  and  the  same. 
The  national  government  on  the  Indian  ques 
tion  is  only  an  alias  for  the  people.  Probably 
in  the  cool,  historic  period  which  is  coming, 
when  old  States  and  new,  and  base  and  border 
lines  shall  be  blended,  and  the  provincial  be 
ruled  out  by  the  national,  it  will  appear  that 
civilization  and  religion  had  hard  times  at  the 
front,  with  scant  encouragement  from  the  older 
States,  and  the  Indian  and  his  white  neighbor 
degenerated.  For  the  good  of  the  red  man  and 
of  the  border  white  man  there  has  been  too 
much  East  and  too  little  West,  and  very  much 
foreign,  in  the  divisions  and  apportionments  of 
our  benevolent  work,  and  in  our  popular  enthu 
siasm.  Very  likely  the  progressing  failure  in 
our  civilization  and  Christianity  to  save  the  Ind 
ian  races  will  by  and  by  be  properly  traced,  not 
to  any  inherent  weakness  in  the  systems,  but  to 
their  unfortunate  administration.  It  is  to  be  de- 


174  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

voutly  hoped  that  we  will  not  be  too  late  in  the 
discovery  that  the  household  phrase,  Home  Mis 
sions,  means  for  this  new  and  broad  continent 
a  power  to  make  a  nation  to  order.  Providence 
has  given  out  the  order,  and,  if  it  is  not  filled, 
the  responsibility  must  come  on  those  having 
the  management  of  the  work.  In  discussing 
the  Louisville  Canal  Bill,  in  the  United  States 
Senate,  in  1836,  and  against  much  Eastern  op 
position  and  ignorance  of  the  Western  growth 
and  preponderance  of  the  nation,  Webster,  as 
usual  with  him,  took  a  national  view  of  the 
question,  and  said  it  was  his  habit  to  ask,  not 
where  an  improvement  was  proposed,  but  what 
it  was.  Then  he  added  :  "  There  are  no  Alle- 
ghanies  in  my  politics."  We  have  needed 
Christian  contributors  and  benevolent  adminis 
trators  of  Christianity  as  continental  as  such 
statesmen.  Some,  with  long  and  wide  patriotic 
and  Christian  plans,  have  gone  "  from  sea  to 
sea,"  but  the  number  of  these  has  been  all  too 
small,  and  therefore  these  ugly  Indian  and 
Mormon  and  Socialist  questions  trouble  the 
nation  on  its  Western  side. 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  175 


CONCLUSION. 

WE  have  had  several  epochs  in  our  Indian 
history,  but  no  one  has  come  with  the  gravity 
which  attaches  to  the  bill  that  secures  land  in 
severally  and  citizenship  to  the  Indian.  It 
gives  to  him  three  things,  any  one  of  which  is 
more  than  all  that  the  nation  has  before  con 
tributed  toward  his  manhood  :  separateness  from 
the  tribal  relation,  land  as  truly  and  absolutely 
his  as  is  that  of  a  millionnaire,  and  all  the 
rights,  privileges,  and  immunities  which  per- 
taiii~~to  a  citizen  of  the  United  States.  It  does 
not  surprise  us  that  the  author  of  the  bill 
re-wrote  it  seven  times,  and  has  given  to  it  six 
or  seven  years  of  senatorial  life. 

We  indicate  its  leading  features.  When  the 
President  sees  an  Indian  so  far  advanced  that 
in  his  opinion  he  can  maintain  himself,  and 
wishes  land  of  his  own,  he  is  authorized  to  allot 
to  him,  if  the  head  of  a  family,  160  acres  of 
land,  and  if  single  80  acres,  and  to  each  child 
of  this  head  of  a  family,  40  acres,  within  their 
reservation.  For  twenty-five  years  no  one 
can  obtain  any  legal  title,  claim,  or  lien  to  any 


176 


of  this  laud,  and  then  the  government  conveys 
it  absolutely  to  the  Indian  in  fee-simple.  Land 
within  the  reservation,  not  so  disposed  of 
finally,  may  be  sold  to  the  white  settlers,  by 
consent  of  the  tribe ;  and  the  income  from  such 
sales  the  government  shall  hold  for  the  bene 
fit  of  the  original  Indian  occupants.  But  the 
white  man  purchasing  must  dwell  on  the  land 
five  years  continuous  before  he  can  obtain  a 
title.  After  this  manner,  and  eventually,  the 
reservation  system  and  the  tribal  relations  will 
disappear,  but  only  as  each  Indian  chooses  the 
new  style  of  life.  This  will  come  about  imper 
ceptibly  ;  and  so  almost  unconsciously  all  these 
"wards  "  of  the  nation  will  become  citizens  in 
full.  There  are  two  marvels  about  the  bill: 
one  is  that  its  fundamental  provisions  are  so 
simple,  and  the  other  is  that  we  have  been  so 
long  in  coining  to  it. 

The  bill  imposes  certain  grave  obligations  on 
the  people.  The  government  can  bestow  the 
land  and  confer  citizenship,  but  not  till  the 
Indian  is  fitted  for  them  and  ^desires  them. 
Here  comes  in  a  first  great  duty  of  the  benev 
olent  to  prepare  the  Indian  for  this  step,  and 
to  lead  him  up  to  desinj  it.  On  this  Mr. 
Dawes  has  well  said:  "  The  government  can 
furnish  money,  but  it  cannot  teach  a  school. 
The  government  can  give  land,  but  it  cannot 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  177 

teach  ln>w  t->  cultivate  it;  that  must  be  done 
by  private  and  benevolent  effort,  or  not  at  all. 
It  would  be  idle  to  take  him  out  and  give  him 
160  acres  of  land,  ignorant  how  to  use  it ;  bet 
ter  let  him  be  where  he  is.  ...  The  Indian  is 
to  be  trained  and  educated,  not  by  government 
officials,  but  by  private  effort.  Teachers  should 
be  paid  in  large  degree  by  the  government,  and 
the  government  has  shown  its  readiness  to  sup 
ply  everything  that  can  be  done  in  educating 
them."  1 

Certain    dangers    or    perils    lie    about    this 
bill,    and    in    this    speech    now    quoted,    Mr. 

\  Dawes  says,  and  with  force :  "  The  great  dan 
ger  with  the  Indian  is  that  he  will  be  cir 
cumvented  ;  that  he  will  be  cheated,  if  no.t 
directly  out  of  his  property,  yet  that  in  one 

\  way  or  another  he  will  lose  it.  The  State  is 
hostile  to  his  coming  there  and  settling."  This 
anxiety  seems  to  follow  the  distinguished  Sena 
tor  and  in  an  address  at  the  Conference  of  the 
Missionary  Boards  and  Indians  Rights  Associ 
ations,  in  Washington,  January,  1887,  he  re 
curs  to  these  dangers  again  :  "  Suppose  it 
became  a  law  just  as  we  want  it,  what  is  the 
thing  next  to  be  done  ?  Are  we  to  step  down 
and  say  that  we  have  enacted  this  great  work 
into  completion  ?  I  never  knew  any  good  to 
1  "Mohonk  Lake  Conference,"  October,  1886. 


178  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

come  from  any  such  course  of  action.  I  am 
greatly  oppressed  with  the  feeling  that  it  will  be 
considerable  of  an  undertaking  to  get  the  peo 
ple  of  this  country  to  feel  and  understand  .  .  . 
that  unless  we  comprehend  it,  and  feel  it  as  a 
living  principle,  after  all,  it  would  have  been 
better  that  the  law  never  should  have  been 
enacted." 

This^  bill  can  become  of  force  in  actual  re 
sults  ont^Ta^Qa^ 

the  land  advance  the  Indians  up  the  line  of 
civilization,  and  prepare  them  for  this  new  and 
citizen  life.  The  philanthropic  and  Christian 
associations  are  to  lead  this  unfortunate  race 
along  in  a  preparatory  course,  till,  in  the  judg 
ment  of  the  President,  they  are  qualified  to  be 
graduated  from  their  wild  state  of  pupilage 
and  enter  into  the  individualism  and  indepen 
dency  of  American  citizens. 

In  his  Washington  speech,  Mr.  Dawes  urges 
this  benevolent  action  in  earnest  words :  "  It 
is  possible  to  lose  all  the  benefit  of  this  (bill) 
by  indifference,  or  by  the  apprehension  that 
you  have  accomplished  it  all,  when  you  have 
got  a  measure  upon  which  you  have  set  your 
hearts  as  capable  of  wooing  out  the  result. 
With  the  passage  of  this  bill  you  will  only  have 
gotten  the  instrument,  that  is  all.  .  .  .  We 
must  understand  that  we  are  carrying  along  not 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  179 


only  the  IiKlian^  but  WJB-ara  -carrying  along  pub 
lic  opinion,  wliicli,  up  to  this  time,  has  been  in  an 
altogether  different  direction,  and  holding  back. 
We-are  to~educate  white  men  as  well  as  Indians 
in  this  matter/' 

With  this  the  remarks  of  General  Porter  on 
the  same  occasion  were  in  accord  :  "  You  can 
do  nothing  in  law,  or  in  the  practical  opera 
tions  in  the  progress  of  a  people,  that  is  con 
trary  to  that  progress,  or  the  public  sentiment 
controlling  it.  It  does  not  make  any  differ 
ence  what  you  enact  in  the  shape  of  law  ;  the 
public  sense  of  a  country  is  what  will  shape  its 
course.  .  .  .  The  idea  of  lands  in  severalty  has 
been  for  the  last  fifty  years  a  pet  scheme  for 
the  solution  of  the  question  as  to  the  civiliza 
tion  and  the  Christianization  of  the  Indians. 
It  has  been  repeated  and  failed  times  without 
number.  While  Manypenny  was  Commissioner 
of  Indian  Affairs,  there  were  not  less  than  15 
or  20  tribes  that  took  lands  in  severalty,  with 
the  option  of  becoming  citizens.  Where  are 
those  tribes  to-day?  Reduced  in  numbers, 
reduced  in  morals,  without  spirit,  they  have 
been  cast  into  the  Indian  Territory,  and  given 
small  reservations  there.  They  took  lands  in 
severalty.  At  first  they  seemed  to  progress, 
which  is  perfectly  natural  ;  believing  in  it 
inspires  them  to  work  out  its  end,  but  just  as 


180  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

soon  as  their  environments  are  contrary  to  it, 
they  lose  courage,  and  it  dies,  and  they  want 
to  get  away.  The  surrounding  settlements  of 
Indian  reservations,  where  the  land  has  been 
divided  in  severally ,  have  invariably  had  such 
experience  as  to  result  in  petitions  to  Congress 
to  get  rid  of  the  worthless  Indians." 

We  must  not  conceal  from  ourselves  the  fact 
that  the  policy  of  land  in  severally  and  citizen 
ship  for  the  Indians  is  attended  with  no  little 
peril  to  the  new  citizens.  Their  friends,  there 
fore,  as  well  as  the  friends  of  a  progressive  civ 
ilization,  must  stand  by  them  with  all  the  more 
steadfastness  and  watching  and  sacrifice  when 
they  enter  on  this  higher  plane  of  living.  An 
experiment  of  years  ago  in  Massachusetts  is 
full  of  suggestions,  and  is  calculated  to  make 
one  somewhat  timid  and  anxious  over  our  new 
policy. 

About  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago  the 
Housatonics  were  a  remnant  quite  respectable 
in  number  and  quality  in  Stockbridge  and  vicin 
ity.  Late  in  the  year  1749,  an  order  was  passed 
by  the  Legislature  that  their  lands,  held  on  the 
tribal  theory,  should  be  divided  and  apportioned 
among  them  on  some  pltui  and  scale  of  equity. 
Moreover,  the  order  in  council  says  that  "it  is 
further  declared  that  the  Indian  inhabitants  of 
the  town  of  Stockbridge  are  and  shall  be  sub- 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  181 

jected  to  and  receive  the  benefit  of  the  laws  of 
this  Government  to  all  intents  and  purposes  in 
like  manner  as  other  His  Majesty's  subjects  of 
this  Province  are  subjected  or  do  receive." 

An  official  of  the  government  aided  them  in 
making  the  divisions  and  apportionments.  The 
Indian  proprietors  decided  to  appropriate  at 
first  but  one-half  their  reservation,  so  that  they 
might  have  lands  to  grant  to  Indians  of  other 
tribes  who  might  wish  to  make  home  with 
them  afterward.  It  was  found  that  sixty  were 
entitled  to  land,  and  it  was  assigned  in  parcels 
ranging  from  ten  acres  to  eighty.  Some  Eng 
lish  families  had  previously  been  invited  by  the 
Indians  to  settle  among  them,  as  farmers  and 
mechanics,  for  purposes  of  instruction,  and 
these  already  had  lands  in  possession. 

The  Indians  at  once  laid  out  a  common  for 
a  training-field,  cemetery,  and  church  lot.  The 
races  thus  mixed  in  neighborhood  life  consti 
tuted  the  town  of  Stockbridge,  as  the  tribe 
of  Indians  was  called  Stockbridge,  or  Housa- 
tonic,  and  the  town  records  of  that  early  day 
show  that  the  red  men  shared  with  the  white 
the  offices  of  selectmen,  assessors,  constables, 
and  deacons,  and  several  of  the  aborigines  bore 
military  responsibilities  and  titles  during  the 
French,  Indian,  and  Revolutionary  wars.  They 
had  had  good  training  under  the  missionaries 


182  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

Sargent  and  Edwards,  and,  with  the  possible  ex 
ception  of  the  Cherokees,  there  was  never,  in  the 
United  States,  a  tribe  better  prepared  for  the 
experiment  which  they  tried.  The  Indian  pro 
prietors  held  their  annual  and  some  special 
meetings  from  1750  to  1781,  and  had  the  man 
agement  of  their  affairs  in  their  own  hands, 
among  which  were  the  control  and  disposal  of 
the  undivided  half  of  their  reservation.  And 
yet,  in  less  than  forty  years,  the  experiment 
failed  and  was  abandoned,  and  the  Stockbridge 
Indians  moved  off  and  united  with  the  Oneidas 
of  Central  New  York. 

Why  the  failure  of  a  policy  founded  on  land 
in  severalty  and  the  ballot  and  equal  privileges 
under  the  laws  ?  The  proprietors'  record  book 
answers  the  question  somewhat,  though  unde- 
signedly.  The  undivided  land  was  sold,  accord 
ing  to  vote,  from  time  to  time,  to  pay  the  debts 
of  the  proprietors,  till  it  was  all  gone.  Indi 
viduals  were  allowed  also,  by  proprietors'  vote, 
to  sell  their  private  land  to  pay  off  personal 
debts,  till  they  were  reduced  to  poverty.  The 
quotation  of  a  few  votes  will  make  it  plain. 

"  Voted,  that  T.  Woodbridge,  Esq.,  make  sale 
for  the  just  debts  of  the  ^Indian  proprietors, 
who  have  not  ability  otherwise  to  discharge 
their  debts,  all  that  tract  of  land  lying,"  etc. 
"Voted  and  granted  to  Elias  and  Benj.  Willarcl 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  183 

one  hundred  acres  of  land,  in  consideration  of 
their  discharging  £50,  New  York  currency, 
debts  due  to  them  from  sundry  Indian  propri 
etors."  Captain  Daniel  Niraham,  "  owing  a 
large  sum  of  money,  which  he  cannot  pay, 
except  by  the  sale  of  his  original  grant,"  is 
given  liberty  to  sell.  "Granted  to  William 
Goodrich,  in  consideration  of  his  having  his  ox 
killed,  fifty  acres  of  land."  One  article  in  the 
warrant  for  the  meeting  in  1771  reads  thus : 
"  To  see  if  the  said  proprietors  will  order  and 
grant  some  of  their  common  lands  to  be  sold 
for  the  payment  of  several  Indian  debts,  who 
have  judgments  of  courts  and  executions  issued 
against  them,  and  must  unavoidably  be  com 
mitted  to  jail  except  relieved  by  the  propri 
etors."  And  in  1780  all  the  common  lands  in 
the  south  part  of  the  town  were  sold  for  the 
payment  of  public  debts. 

These  are  samples  of  some  sixty  votes  on 
the  Indian  land  sales  within  thirty  years  of  the 
time  when  the  land  was  granted  in  severalty. 
We  are  at  no  loss  to  conclude  why  some  of 
these  debts  were  contracted,  nor  does  it  sur 
prise  us  that  white  men  would  trust  Indians, 
so  long  as  Indians  owned  land.  When  emer 
gencies  came,  they  could  be  persuaded  or 
forced  to  part  with  it  to  satisfy  the  shrewd 
creditor.  The  Saxon  greed  and  schemes  for 


184  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

land  are  not  new  with  us.  It  was  thought 
to  mingle  the  two  races  socially  and  civilly, 
and  yet  the  fatal  weakness  in  the  policy  of  the 
council  of  1749  was  in  permitting  that  near 
ness  of  the  white  man  to  the  red  man.  Slowly, 
but  inevitably,  the  shrewder  and  sharper  race 
absorbed  the  property  of  the  inferior  neighbor, 
and  so  the  life  of  the  Indian  commonwealth  ran 
only  for  one  generation. 

In  epitomizing  this  experiment  of  the  Massa 
chusetts  Colony  with  the  Housatonic  or  Stock- 
bridge  tribe  of  Indians,  an  author  remarks : 
"  The  simple  fact  seems  to  have  been  that  even 
without  attributing  deliberate  intention  of  fraud 
in  the  premises,  the  natural  and  inevitable  re 
sult  of  the  contact  of  simplicity  with  shrewd 
ness,  of  ignorance  with  intelligence,  of  indolence 
with  industry,  of  barbarism  with  civilization, 
happened  in  this  case,  as  methinks  it  will  ever 
happen  —  the  weaker  party  must  go  to  the 
wall."  ! 

Mr.  Dawes  referred  to  this  same  adverse  pub 
lic  sentiment  on  the  border  and  in  Washington, 
when  he  said,  in  his  Mohonk  speech :  "  I 
have  been  for  years  in  a  fight  with  western 
men,  who  are  bent  upon  tal'ing  land  from  these 
Indians  without  the  slightest  regard  to  their 

1  E.  W.   B.   Canning,   "Mag.  of   Am.    His.,"    August, 

1887. 


OF  THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  185 

rights,  or  the  obligations  the  government  had 
entered  into.  .  .  .  There  is  an  organization  in 
Washington  of  very  excellent  men,  but  their 
purpose  is  to  perpetuate  the  existing  state  of 
things." 

In  the  execution  of  the  bill,  a  specific  danger 
arises.  The  President  has  to  do  it  through 
the  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  and  he  through  the 
Commissioner  of  Indian  Affairs,  and  he  through 
fifty  or  a  hundred  agents  scattered  among  the 
Indians,  and  some  of  them  a  thousand  miles  off. 
If  all  are  good  men  and  true,  competent,  faith 
ful  to  their  trust,  and  in  full  sympathy  with 
the  Indian  cause,  it  will  be  well  with  the 
bill.  But  the  peril  to  the  aim  and  end  of. the 
bill  is  obvious  when  the  interests  of  white  men 
are  luiuwn-lro  be  in  the  ascendant.  There  is  a 
large  body  of  men  East  and  West,  land  specu 
lators  and  jobbers  in  Indian  reservations  and 
supplies,  who  wish  to  have  the  old  conditions 
continued.  This  bill  will  put  all  their  schemes 
and  usages  concerning  Indian  lands  among  the 
impossibles.  Thousands  will  be  thrown  out  of 
employment  and  fortunes. 

But  above  all  and  more  than  all  dangers  and 
perils  which  cluster  about  the  opening  of  this 
new  Indian  era,  is  the  dominant  white  hostil 
ity  to  the  Indians  as  neighbors.  This  becomes, 
practically,  hostility  to  their  preservation  and 


186  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

civilization,  with  a  part  of  the  American  people. 
This  is  recognized  in  the  phrases,  in  the  preced 
ing  quotations  :  "  The  State  is  hostile  to  his 
coming,"  "public  opinion  holding  back," 
"  environments,"  "  surrounding  settlements." 
This  obstacle  is  recognized  in  the  speeches  but 
not  in  the  bill,  since  law  cannot  reach  it.  The 
appeals  to  the  people  for  benevolent  and 
moral  and  Christian  aid,  to  make  the  law  effec 
tive,  are  not  too  strong,  are  well  put,  and  are 
recognized  as  carrying  a  force  indispensable  to 
success."  After  all,  the  public  at  large  are  to 
do  the  work.  The  tone  of  national  feeling 
toward  the  Indian,  and  the  prevalent  habit  of 
the  nation  in  handling  him,  are  indicated  in 
two  federal  money  facts.  Last  year  the  In 
terior  Department  had  16,000,000  to  use  in 
caring  for,  educating,  and  civilizing  the  Ind 
ians,  and  the  War  Department  had  $17,000,- 
000  to  use  in  subduing  them,  and  in  holding 
them  in  subjection  by  military  force.  Three 
times  as  much  for  enforcing  subjection  as  to 
enlighten  and  civilize  and  lift  him  out  of  the 
ordinary  chances  for  savagery.  These  two  facts 
are  a  measure  of  the  moral  convictions  of  the 
government  on  the  Indian  policy ;  and  the 
Indian  severally  bill  opens  fliis  new  Indian  era 
in  the  face  of  these  facts.  There  is  no  lack  of 
equity  and  humanity  and  Christian  statesman- 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  187 

ship  in  the  scheme,  but  its  "environment" 
puts  its  success  in  great  peril.  The  American 
people  are  hardened  into  discouragement  anfl 

apathy  toward  the  Indian  by  successive  and  abor 
tive  experiments.  Even  pMlaiitkcopic-and  phir 
losophical  men  are  drifting  to  the  position  that 
the  Jndians  must  be  reckoned  among  the  effete 
races,  as  the  Pueblos,  Azte«-s.  and  SOUK-  earlier 
ones,  who  have  passed  from  our  continent,  leav 
ing  only  graves  without  headstones  or  names. 

More  people  than  is  generally  supposed  are 
willing  that  the  Indians  should  perish  utterly. 
Various  causes  operate  to  this :  greed  of  land, 
a  wanton,  semi-civilized  delight  in  warring 
on  them,  as  on  animals  whose  heads  offer 
a  bounty ;  an  affected  or  real  fastidiousness 
about  Indian  neighborhood,  as  elsewhere  shown 
concerning  a  negro  as  passenger,  or  hotel  guest, 
or  occupant  of  a  pew ;  impatience  with  their  in 
ferior  grade  as  standing  in  the  way  of  the  prog 
ress  and  civilization  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
Hence  the  semi-serious  judgment,  felt  by 
many  more  than  express  it :  "  The  good 
Indian  is  the  dead  Indian."  That  is  happen 
ing  which  is  not  novel  in  the  growth  of  su 
perior  nations  and  under  foreign  invasions. 
In  the  agrarian  military  divisions  of  Italian 
Rome  the  immigrants  and  new  settlers  had  only 
lo  say  :  —  ••  Hsec  mea  sunt :  veteres  migrate 


188  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

coloni."  In  our  border  and  very  vernacular 
English,  this  is  rendered :  "  The  Indian  must 
go." 

It  is  not  apparent  that  neighborhood  feeling 
in  our  border  land  is  any  more  tolerant  toward 
an  Indian  farmer  on  the  other  side  of  the  fence 
than  it  was  in  Georgia  under  the  Cherokee 
experiment.  Indeed,  lapse  of  years,  with  con 
stantly  failing  experiments,  have  begotten  the 
conviction  that  tolerant  and  kindly  neighbor 
hood  between  the  parties  may  not  be  expected. 
Chapters  one  and  three,  made  up  so  largely 
from  official  sources,  are  painfully  full  to  aid 
this  conviction.  But,  what  is  more  —  that 
neighborhood  has  not  yet  been  established,  ex 
cept  in  rare  cases,  and  those  lack  time  to  show 
that  they  are  a  success. 

We  have  said  that  we  are  opening  on  a  new 
Indian  era,  and,  it  is  safe  to  say,  the  most  hope 
ful  one  ever  offered  to  this  unfortunate  race. 
It  is  with  the  superior  race  to  make  it  a  success 
or  a  failure.  The  whites  are  masters  totally  of 
the  situation,  though  cumbered  by  much  which 
Indian  heredity  has  entailed,  and  by  discourag 
ing  antecedents,  and  by  various  adverse  cir 
cumstances  and  incidents  ^now  immediately 
pressing.  Still,  like  all  impediments  to  a  good 
cause,  these  things  are  simply  obstacles  to  be 
overcome.  It  is  much  to  aid  in  doing  it  that 


OF   THE    INDIAN   QUESTION.  189 

now,  to  a  remarkable  degree,  the  moral  sense  of 
the  people  is  awakened,  and  the  honor  of  the 
nation  is  under  conviction,  in  view  of  mortify 
ing  failures  in  its  policies  for  the  Indian.  And 
what  is,  probably,  to  become  a  strong  auxiliary 
for  success  in  this  new  era,  is  the  wide  and 
growing  persuasion  that  we  have  not  only  or 
ganized  wrongs  thoughtfully  for  this  prior  and 
feeble  race,  but  we  have  suffered  wrongs  to  be 
extemporized  and  sprung  on  them  by  schemes 
of  marauding  and  plundering.  We  have  winked 
when  we  should  have  frowned,  and  we  have 
hurried  away  the  victims  under  the  pretended 
convoy  and  protection  of  arms,  when  those 
arms  should  have  been  turned  against  the  in 
vaders  of  Indian  rights  and  the  violators  of 
national  pledges. 

It  is  hopeful  that  we  have  come  to  some  hu 
miliation  in  view  of  what  the  fathers  did,  and 
the  nation  is  taking  unto  itself  some  of  the  dis 
honor  which  it  has  allowed  belts  of  territory 
and  sectional  masses  of  the  people  and  greedy 
financial  schemers  to  accomplish.  Reparation 
is  thought  of  by  many,  and  that  is  hopeful ; 
for  the  unwise  and  the  unkind  of  the  past 
always  become,  when  discovered,  a  stimulus 
with  good  men  to  secure  a  better  future.  It^ 

is  nnaj^-Jjie_4rmofs    nf  tllp    ml  vanning   qiviliza- 

tion  of  the  age  that  the  nation  is  beginning  to 


190  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

show  compassion  and  some  sense  of  justice  for 
the  Indian. 

At  this  critical  epoch  it  will  not  be  wise  to 
look  only  to  the  future,  since  true  progress  is 
achieved  by  a  large  expenditure  of  study  on 
the  past.  The  simplicity  and  humanity  and 
statesmanship  and  vigor  in  the  new  scheme, 
now  a  law  of  the  nation,  must  not  divert  our 
study  of  the  one  fatal  weakness  in  all  preceding 
schemes.  The  first  three  chapters  of  this  book 
have  been  made  quite  elaborate  in  historical  re 
search,  and  perhaps  to  the  reader  tedious,  in 
unfolding  the  mutual  relations  of  the  two  races. 
We  have  traced  their  relations  along  the  line  of 
neighborhood,  and  among  the  adjoining  and  in 
termingled  farms  of  red  and  white  men,  for  two 
centuries.  We  have  also  outlined  the  same  re 
lations  in  an  eminent  and  protracted  national 
experiment,  to  secure  a  conterminous  if  not 
intermingled  neighborhood  life.  For  the  ma 
terial  for  these  chapters,  we  have  not  drawn 
from  the  resources  of  philanthropic  romance, 
or  hypothetical  benevolence,  or  from  the  sym 
pathies  and  aesthetics  of  imworking  though  most 
humane  parties.  We  have  worked  mostly  along 
the  hard,  cold  line  of  official  records  in  territo 
rial  and  state  and  national  dealings  with  the 
American  Indians.  With  painful  reluctance 
and  with  mortification,  we  are  forced  to  the 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  191 

conclusion,  from  these  three  chapters,  that,  for 
the  perpetuity,  elevation,  and  civilization  of 
this  race,  the  white  man  has  stood  in  the  way 
of  the  Indian. 

Jt  remains  to  be  discovered  whether  this 
opposition  to  Indian  civilization  has  been  es 
sentially  abated.  Here  is  the  pivotal  point  on 
which  the  new  policy  will  turn  for  good  or 
evil,  and  the  struggle  will  come,  as  always 
heretofore,  along  the  dubious  border  where 
the  two  races  meet. 

From  all  that  we  have  shown  in  this  detail 
of  official  and  other  reliable  information,  it  is 
evident  that  the  power  of  the  military  forces 
and  of  the  courts  alone  cannot  carry  the  end 
sought  for  the  Indians.  If  public  sentiment 
on  the  border,  where  alone  the  question  must 
become  practical,  and  be  wrought  out  practi 
cally,  is  unfavorable,  it  easily  can  and  will  put 
a  veto  on  any  proceedings,  whether  congres 
sional,  civil,  or  military.  In  any  large  sections 
of  the  domain,  the  people  will  have  their  own 
way  in  handling  the  Indian  and  his  land ;  and 
the  sections  in  question  constitute  the  western 
front  of  our  nation,  extending  in  a  deep  belt 
from  Mexico  to  the  British  dominion.  No 
process  of  venue  can  remove  the  trial  of  the 
question  from  the  vicinage  of  its  origin,  which 
is  a  thousand  miles  by  five  hundred. 


192  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

When  we  have  used  the  civil  and  military 
powers  on  this  issue  to  their  extent,  we  have 
exhausted  the  forces  of  the  national  govern 
ment,  since  it  cannot  legislate  and  execute  on 
questions  of  mere  sentiment  or  public  opinion. 
The  new  scheme  is,  apparently,  eminently  well 
adapted  to  the  end  sought,  and  it  can  be  car 
ried  with  all  the  efficiency  which  a  United 
States  statute  can  possess ;  but  if  the  main 
difficulty  of  execution  lies  in  the  tone  and  tem 
per  of  public  sentiment,  the  scheme  must  be 
inadequate  to  overcome  the  difficulties.  No 
man  can  be  made  amiable  toward  an  Indian 
by  Act  of  Congress,  but  unamiable  neighbors 
make  civilized  and  permanently  settled  Indians 
an  impossibility. 

Our  labors,  therefore,  to  make -the  new  Ind 
ian  era  a  success  are  narrowed  to  a  few  points. 
The  work  is  to  be  done  mainly  on  the  Indian 
and  white  borders,  and  only  indirectly  and 
partially  at  Washington  ;  it  is  to  be  extra- 
constitutional,  that  is,  social  and  moral,  and 
not  mainly  legislative  and  civil  and  executive  ; 
and  it  is  to  be  wrought  principally  on  white 
men.  They  must  become  tolerant  and  neigh 
borly  and  patient  and  enduring  with  their 
inferior  neighbors,  and  helpful  toward  unfor 
tunate  and  abused  native  Americans.  The 
bearing  towards  the  Indian  needs  to  become 


OF   THE   INDIAN   QUESTION.  193 

like  that  which  old  States  show,  where  all 
social  and  moral  and  educated  and  financial 
grades,  and  all  bloods  and  colors  dwell  harmo 
niously  together,  within  limits  ample  enough 
for  the  widest  choice,  and  so  constitute  what  is 
called  a  civilized  society. 

Reflections  and  regrets  are  perhaps  vain,  yet 
we  may  not  be  so  near  the  end  of  this  work  as 
to  make  them  valueless.  The  civilizing  and 
Christianizing  forces  of  the  older  States  have 
been  allowed  to  be  scanty  and  feeble  on  our 
emigrating  and  propagating  borders.  The  sur 
plus  of  benevolent  sympathies  and  funds  and 
men  have  been  put  to  the  front  timidly,  and 
often  with  a  crippling,  impoverishing  support. 
We  have  allowed  patriotic  heroes  and  heroines 
to  depart  quietly  for  picket  duty,  and  a  perpet 
ual  absence  on  small  rations.  If  at  the  end  of 
twenty  or  thirty  years  some  of  them  have  re 
turned  to  visit  only  graves  at  the  homestead,  and 
incidentally  to  stir  a  holy  crusade  for  a  tier  of 
new  States  and  Territories,  they  have  made  the 
pilgrimage  usually  at  their  own  costs,  and  out 
of  scrupulously  saved  moieties.  It  is  only  to 
praise  an  eminently  wise  policy  when  we  say 
that  we  have  treated  the  islands  of  the  sea,  and 
idolatrous  Asia,  and  the  Dark  Continent,  with 
more  worldly  wisdom  and  with  more  of  Christian 
tenderness.  Now,  in  carrying  this  Dawes  bill, 


194  THE  INDIAN'S  SIDE 

so  humane  and  so  Christian  for  a  statute,  into 
our  American  waste  places,  we  are  baffled,  and 
painfully,  by  the  scanty  and  feeble  civilization 
which  our  administrations  of  benevolence  have 
entailed. 

While,  therefore,  governmental  machinery  is 
manufactured  at  Washington,  —  and  vastly  bet 
ter  we  think  of  late  than  ever  before,  —  a  good 
moral  and  social  and  philanthropic  public  opinion 
must  secure  a  fair  chance  for  its  working.  The 
locomotives  must  have  a  good  track,  and  kept 
clear.  Indian  associations  will  find  the  very  best 
of  causes  for  benevolent  work  in  arousing  pop 
ular  feeling,  and  in  organizing  for  frontier  field 
work.  Whenever  a  tribe  adopts  the  Dawes 
bill,  and  resolves  itself  into  a  community  of 
incipient  American  citizens,  Indian  friends 
should  be  ready  and  willing  at  once  to  sur 
round  those  Indians  with  a  social  police, 
and  to  throw  over  their  new  homes  and  hopes 
a  network  of  protective  influences  fully  up 
to  the  intent  and  tone  of  the  bill.  This 
will  require  agents  on  the  ground,  of  rare 
sympathy  and  energy,  and  watchfulness  and 
prudence,  and  men  too  who  know  the  border 
by  experience.  It  will  be  turning  to  some 
practical  account  the  enthusiasm  of  mass-meet 
ings  for  the  wards  of  the  nation,  and  the  work 
will  be  quite  unlike  that  of  cheering  eloquent 


OF   THE  INDIAN   QUESTION.  195 

speeches.  We  must  not  forget  how  much 
most  excellent  legislating  has  been  done  by 
Congress  for  the  Indians  since  the  Republic 
was  founded,  and  designing,  selfish,  unprin 
cipled  men  have  made  it  inoperative,  till  hope 
of  saving  the  Indians  from  extinction  is  very 
feeble.  This  bill  awaits  the  same  opposition  in 
social  dislike  of  the  Indians,  and  in  contempt 
of  them,  and  in  satisfaction  at  their  decrease, 
and  in  a  greed  for  their  lands.  Sympathy 
with  the  bill  and  for  its  object  must  make 
itself  felt  on  the  ground  where  it  is  proposed 
to  execute  it,  and  this  sympathy  must  be 
organized  and  concentrated  and  made  perma 
nent  by  well  supported  agencies,  constantly 
auxiliary  to  government,  and  never  relaxing 
watch  and  ward. 


NOTES. 


I. 

"The  early  Jesuit  missionaries  all  write  of 
well  cultivated  fields,  cared  for  by  the  natives, 
who  pursued  the  same  course  as  our  frou- 
tiermen  have  followed  ever  since  —  girdling 
and  then  burning  the  trees,  leaving  the  stumps 
to  decay,  grubbing  up  the  bushes,  and  then 
planting."  l 

"The  Pilgrims  very  often  send  their  shallops 
to  the  coast  of  Maine  to  buy  corn  of  the  Ind 
ians,"  and  they  used  on  the  New  England 
coast  fish  for  fertilizers,  as  the  whites  have  con 
tinued  to  do.2 

The  Indians  in  the  region  of  the  present 
Deerfield  once  took  fifty  canoe  loads  of  corn  to 
towns  in  the  valley  of  the  Connecticut  below, 
which  were  in  distress  from  famine. 

When  Governor  Endicott  raided  Block  Isl- 

1  The  Bed  Man  and  the  White  Man,  George  E.  Ellis, 
D.D.,  p.  175.  2 

197 


198  NOTES. 

and,  he  found  and  destroyed  two  hundred 
acres  of  "  stately  fields  of  corn."  In  the 
French  wars,  it  was  found  that  the  Iroquois 
had  on  hand  a  stock  of  corn  for  two  years,  with 
good  store  of  vegetables,  and  apple  orchards ;. 
and  the  Abenakis  of  Maine  were  good  farming 
Indians. 

II. 

As  to  the  treatment  of  the  Indians  in  the 
colonial  East,  some  facts  should  be  added, 
and  they  should  be  remembered,  too,  when 
their  treatment  in  the  new  States  and  Terri 
tories  is  criticised.  Governor  Perm  of  Penn 
sylvania,  grandson  of  the  eminent  philanthro 
pist,  offered,  by  proclamation,  $185  for  a  male 
Indian  prisoner,  and  $180  for  a  female.  The 
Commissioners  for  that  colony  agreed  to  send 
to  England  for  fifty  couples  of  blood-hounds, 
to  be  used  by  the  Rangers  against  the  Indian 
scalping  parties. 

Official  papers  in  the  archives  show  that  the 
Massachusetts  Colony  offered  bounties  for  Ind 
ian  scalps,  —  to  the  regular  soldier  ten  pounds 
sterling,  to  the  volunteer  twenty,  and  to  patrol 
parties  fifty.  These  boirnties  were  claimed, 
paid,  and  receipted  for.  Mrs.  Dustin  so  re 
ceived  bounty  for  ten  scalps,  which  she  had 
taken  with  her  own  hands. 


NOTES.  199 


III. 

As  to  the  decrease  of  the  Indians,  some  per 
sonal  reminiscences  will  not  be  thought  out 
of  place.  In  1840  the  Indians  were  abundant 
in  large  sections  of  Michigan  and  Wisconsin, 
and  the  author  found  it  a  common  thing  to  fall 
in  with  them  in  Missouri;  and  in  1841  they 
thronged  him  at  Keokuk  and  in  the  present 
Iowa  and  Minnesota.  Speaking  generally  the 
quadrant  cornering  on  St.  Louis  and  running 
north  by  the  Mississippi  to  the  British  line,  and 
west  beyond  the  Rocky  Mountains,  the  coun 
try  in  1840  was  alive  with  Indans. 

In  a  ramble  in  and  about  that  region  this  re 
cent  autumn  the  scene  is  wonderfully  changed. 
The  Reservations  have  some,  but  those  vast 
spaces  of  plains  and  mountains  and  valleys 
show  but  very  few.  In  a  saddle  ride  of  eight 
hundred  miles  on  the  heads  of  the  Colorado 
and  Columbia  rivers,  and  near  to  those  of  the 
Missouri,  and  among  the  Big  Horn,  Wind  River, 
Teton,  and  Bridger  Mountains,  only  a  few 
squads  of  the  Snakes  and  Banriacks  were 
met.  Where  Lewis  and  Clark  met  so  many  in 
1803-6,  and  Lieutenants  Pike  and  Long  much 
later,  and  Dr.  Whitman  and  companies  from 
1836  to  1843,  and  the  Oregon  and  California 
emigrants  afterward,  and  Fremont  in  all  his 


200  NOTES. 

exploring  tours,  and  the  builders  of  the  Union 
and  Northern  Pacific,  and  Kansas  railroads, 
we  have  found  the  Indians  almost  as  scarce  as 
the  buffaloes.  A  few  times  only  we  came  on 
their  tents,  or  the  marks  of  their  lodge -poles, 
in  our  dusty  trail,  where  they  had  dragged 
them  along  on  their  lonely  wanderings.  The 
Delawares,  whom  the  government  once  pro 
posed  to  form  into  a  State  to  enter  the  Union 
and  sit  in  Congress,  were  reduced  in  1884 
to  74. 


INDEX. 


AGRICULTURE  for  the  Cherokees,  130. 
Agriculture  of  Indians,  pre-historic,  86. 

Early,  9:i-4,  197-S. 

American  and  English  Indian  policy  compared,  123. 
American  Board's  opinion  on  decrease,  148. 
American  Board's  testimony  to  Indian  progress,  127-9. 
Apaches  in  1858  and  in  1880,  149. 
Ardent  spirits  for  the  Indians,  34-5,  156. 
Arkansas  totally  extinct,  154. 

Army  costs  and  civil  costs  for  the  Indian  work,  186. 
Army  and  courts  alone  not  enough,  191-2. 
Army  rule  of  the  Indians,  44-8,  144-5,  155-7. 

BANCROFT,  GEORGE,  on  Indian  farming,  99,  101. 

Bancroft,  H.  H.,  and  the  Indians,  120-121. 

Border  civilization  imperfect  and  unfriendly  to  Indians,  51, 

Borthwick's  Indian  hunt,  107-8. 

Bounties  in  Massachusetts,  198. 

Pennsylvania,  198. 
Bowies'  "Across  the  Continent,"  31. 
British  Columbia  and  the  Indians,  111-125. 
Burnet,  Judge,  on  Indian  wrongs  in  Ohio,  37. 

Testimony  to  decrease,  144. 

CALIFORNIA  and  Indian  decrease,  157-168. 
Canadian  Dominion  and  the  Indians,  111-125. 

Decrease  of  Indians  in,  145-»5. 
Casenove,  the  last  of  a  great  tribe,  152-3. 
201 


202  INDEX. 

Catlin's  wild  estimate  of  numbers,  162. 
Census  of  the  government  defective,  163-6. 
Cherokees,  etc.,  in  1820  and  in  1880,  143. 
Cherokee  lands  east  of  Mississippi,  58-60. 

Experiment  and  failure,  56-84. 

Opinion  on  farming,  130. 

Progress  in  civilization,  127-9. 

Christianity  negligent  of  the  American  Indians,  171-4. 
Christianizing,  early  success  in  New  England,  18. 
Christians  and  outlawed  Christian  Indians,  124-5. 
Church  of  England  inactive  in  Indian  missions,  171. 
Church  Missionary  Society  and  the  Metlakahtlans,  115-125. 
Church  work  of  early  colonists,  Protestant  and  Roman  Cath 
olic,  20. 

Civilization  destroys  inferior  nations,  45,  46. 
Civilization  and  Christianity  of  whites,  how  high,  124-5. 
"  Civilized  "  Indians  only  entered  in  the  census,  164-8. 
Conclusion,  175-95. 

Corruption  of  Indians  by  the  whites,  156-7. 
Crawford,  Gen.  William  C.,  on  intermarriage,  28-9. 
Custer,  General,  on  Indian  civilization,  47-8. 

DAKOTA,  farming  by  Indians  in,  132-3. 
Dawes  on  struggle  for  Indian  land,  33. 

On  need  of  a  new  policy,  132. 
Dawes  bill,  what,  23-4,  175,  176. 

People  must  enforce,  176-91. 

The  success  of,  where,  3-8,  176-8. 
Decrease  of  Indians  west  of  Mississippi,  148-68. 
Delawares  and  an  Indian  State  in  the  Union,  126-7,  200. 
Drake  on  failing  to  Christianize,  13. 
Dufferin,  Earl,  and  the  Canadian  Indians,  11(5. 
Duncan,  William,  and  the  Canadian  Indians,  111-125. 
Dwight's  estimate  of  number  in  early  New  England,  139. 

EDINBURGH  REVIEW  on  Indian  traders,  41. 
Ellis,  George  E.,  D.I).,  on  early  farthing,  197. 
English  emissaries  excite  Indians  to  war,  170. 
English  influence  on  decrease  of  the  Indians,  170-4. 
English  law  and  Indian  rights  to  land,  121-2. 
Exile  of  16,000,  74. 


INDEX.  203 

FAILURE  in  home  missions  for  whites,  the  radical  failure  for 

the  Indians,  173-4, 193-4. 

Failure  of  Christianity  in  its  administration,  173-4. 
Failure  to  civilize,  why,  3-8. 

Farms  of  Indians  the  best  farthest  from  whites,  101-3,  132-4). 
Farming,  Indian,  87-9,  197-8. 
Farming  and  Indian  migrations,  125-31. 

GEORGIA  and  her  claim  to  wild  lands,  56-60. 

Outlaws  the  Indians,  68-72. 

Present  numher  of  Indians  in,  131. 

Gookin's  estimate  of  number  in  early  New  England,  139. 
Government  a  fiction  separate  from  the  people,  39,  40. 

How  much  can  it  do  for  the  Indians,  33-44. 

Still  experimenting  and  preventing  Indian  farming,  132- 

135. 

Great  benevolent  work  of  the  country  to  enforce  Dawes  bill, 
177-80,  191-5. 

HENXEPIN  on  number  of  Indians,  145. 

Holston,  Treaty  of,  130. 

Home  missions  in  Massachusetts  in  1635-6,  21-2. 

Home  missions  too  provincial  to  reach  the  frontier,  173-4. 

Too  tardy.  r>:i-5. 

Hostility  of  the  English  to  Indians,  108-9. 
Housatonics  and  land  in  severalty,  180-84. 
Hunting  Indians  in  California,  107-8. 
Hurons  or  "Wyandots  once  and  now,  142. 

ILLINOIS  Indians  once  and  now,  145. 

Increase  or  decrease  of  the  Indians,  which,  137-171. 

Indian  and  whites  mixed  in  society,  61-5. 

Civilization  of,  and  John  Smith's  Virginia  colonists,  40. 

Cost  of  supporting  wild,  147. 

Era,  a  new  one,  188-90. 

Expelled  from  Georgia,  61-4. 

Fair  at  Muskogee,  43. 

Farmers  and  white  neighbors,  56-9. 
Indian  farming  in  New  England,  89;   in  New  York,  90;    in 

Ohio  and  Missouri.  91-3:  in  New  Mexico,  92 ;  in  Canada, 

94;  in  Michigan,  95-7  ;  in  Florida,  97-8.     Notes  (I),  p.  197. 


204  INDEX. 

Indian  farming  a  pretended  discovery  and  novelty,  133-6. 
Indian  judgment  on  white  neighbors,  40. 

Lands,  struggle  for,  32-3. 

Indians,  numbers  of,  east  of  Mississippi  in  1820,  141-8. 
Indian  rights  in  the  soil  conceded,  5U-60. 

Safety  only  in  distance  from  whites,  38. 

In  Kentucky  once  and  now,  143. 

Number  of,  in  early  New  England,  138-40. 

Remnants  of,  in  Massachusetts,  in  1861,  140. 

Separation  of,  from  whites,  proposed  and  impossible,  51. 
Indian  Territory,  area,  population,  76 ;  design  of,  127. 

Gloomy  anticipation  in,  81-85. 

Government  in,  78. 
Indian  titles  to  land,  and  the  law  of  nations,  147. 

In  Dominion  of  Canada,  116-125. 
Intermarriage,  25-9. 
Introduction,  3-8. 
Iroquois  as  farmers,  95. 
Is  Christianity  able  to  Christianize  Indians,  172-4. 

JACKSON,  PRESIDENT,  on  the  only  chance  for  the  Indians,  3 
Jackson,  President,  on  reservations,  126,  130. 

KANSAS,  hostility  to  Indians  in,  32. 
Kirkwood,  Secretary,  Indian  policy  of,  131. 

LAND  in  severalty,  experiment  of  with  Housatonics,  180-84. 
Law  as  the  protector  of  the  Indian,  48-51. 

Illustrative  case  of,  50. 
Lawlessness  in  the  Indian  Territory,  49,  77-81. 

MATHER,  COTTON,  his  views  of  the  Indians,  19-20. 
Marshpee  Indians  and  Richard  Bourne,  13-14. 
Massachusetts,  hostile  legislation  of,  17. 
Massaclmsetts  Indians,  education  of,  in  colony  times,  17-18. 
Metlakahtlans  and  the  Canadian  Dominion,  111-125. 
Missions,  Franciscan,  in  California,  157-1(52. 
Monette  on  border  men,  41. 
Montana,  Indian  farmers  in,  133. 
Morse,  Rev.  Dr.,  estimate  of  Indians  in  1820,  139, 
On  Indian  removals,  125-6. 


INDEX.  205 

Mound-Builders  as  farmers,  86. 
Mournful  journey,  74-0. 

NARRAGANSETTS  once  30,000,  138. 

Nationality  of  Indians  denied  by  Congress  in  1871,  110-11. 

Necessary  for  the  people  to  enforce  the  Dawes  bill,  176-91. 

Newfoundland,  last  Indians  in,  14'J. 

Number  of  Indians,  decreasing,  3,  138-166,  199-200. 

OFFICIAL  figures  on  their  number,  163-6. 
Opposition  to  the  Dawes  bill  on  the  frontier,  184-9. 
'Opposition  of  Georgia  to  Indian  elevation,  61-84. 
Ordinance  of  the  North-west  Territory,  33,  34. 
41  Oregon :    The  Struggle   for   Possession  "  on  Indian  policies, 

123-4. 

Oregon  Indians  once  and  now,  150. 
Osages  crowded  off  their  reservation,  41-2. 
Outrage  of  drunken  officer  on  Indians,  44,  45. 

PENS-INDIAN  treaties,  peculiar,  15. 

Penn's  Delaware  Indians,  in  1810,  17,  126-7 ;  in  1884,  200. 

Personal  testimonies  to  the  author,  154-7. 

Philip  III.  of  Spain  and  Indian  Missions  in  New  Mexico,  20. 

Plymouth  Court  and  Marshpee  Reservation,  14. 

Policies,  Indian,  all  a  failure  down  to  1874,  23. 

Pope  Alexander  VI.  and  Indian  missions,  20. 

Pynchou  treaties  for  Northampton,  the  Hadleys  and  vicinity,  16. 

RANDOLPH,  JOHN,  and  soldiers  to  control  Indians,  14-15. 
Randolph,  Richard,  on  government  treatment  of  Indians,  14. 
Reports  and  results  ol  Indian  work  contrasted,  43-4. 
Reservation  system  a  failure,  56-84. 

Reservations,  change  of,  the  ruin  of  Indian  elevation,  125-33. 
Rhode  Island  early  crowded  the  Indians,  18-19. 
Richelieu,  Cardinal,  and  Indian  missions,  20-21. 

SCALPS  bought  of  the  Indians  by  the  English,  171. 
Bounties  on  Indian,  in  Pennsylvania,  198. 
"        in  Massaclmsetts,  198. 
Scotch  society  for  Indian  missions,  21. 
Schoolcraft  on  number  of  Indians  once,  138. 


206  INDEX. 

Siletz  agency  and  13  pitiable  remnants  of  tribes,  154. 
South  Carolina  Indians  once  and  now,  144. 
St—Clair,  Governor,  on  Indian  wrongs,  35-6. 
Stan  ton,  Secretary,  on  iniquity  of  Indian  system,  29. 

TRADERS,  Indian,  the  character  of,  111. 

Treaties,  how  many  with  Indians,  30,  104,  105,  111. 

Treaties  broken  by  whites,  104-7. 

Treaty  with  Indians  limited  in  1871,  110-11. 

Treatment  of  Indians  by  the  Missions  in  California,  158-61. 

UNITED  BRETHREN,  Mission  of,  ruined,  34-5. 
United  States  Court  set  at  nought  by  Georgia,  72-4. 

VIRGINIA  early  crowded  the  Indians,  19. 

WALKER,  COMMISSIONER,  on  law  in  Indian  Territory,  49,  50. 

On  decrease,  152,  157. 

Wall  Street  first  for  a  protection  against  Indians,  110. 
White  and  border  hostility  to  the  Indians,  29-33. 
White  encroachments  on  Indian  farms,  104-11,  132-6. 
White  men  the  great  obstacle  to  Indian  civilization,  51-5. 
Wirt,  William,  on  Indian,  decrease,  14(5-7. 


.    —  4  ir    TTCT7 


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